In all fairness, you could do that before anyway without the armor tree part.
I myself would always try to have all the elements I needed for whatever weapons I wanted. That way, I could just fight a monster with any weapon and not worry about using an element that won’t be as effective.
Why do I have this feeling that the thread had been so quiet because peeps have been too busy playing the game to talk about it?
After capturing my first Pink Rathian I’m finding myself really wishing that the more powerful HR versions of monsters had some sort of visual indicator to tell them apart from their weaker cousins. I know you’ll never find the in the same mission, but if the more reason given for the more powerful versions of monsters is that these are older ones it would be cool to see that reflected by their models. Maybe some extra scars or bigger teeth or fluffier plumage.
But barring that I’m excited to see more cool new subspecies of monsters pop up as the difficulty climbs and/or the DLC starts coming out.
Though speaking of DLC, I certainly hope that there’s content in the future that isn’t just new super hard bosses for veterans to fight. It’d be nice to see something that people with less skill or time or people picking up the game late can enjoy. Something like a new ecosystem to explore (like was hinted at during a certain story mission).
Truth
It’s a fair point. Frankly there was never any real attempt to “explain” the HR monsters. More like “uh oh, looks like the monsters are getting more powerful.” The color changes and whatnot are reserved for real variants. Monsters that are more powerful and/or different than the norm in some way. These have gotten more numerous over time and now there’s lots of them. I’m not sure how many are in this game.
Yeah, I’m used to having games with New Game Plus or higher difficulties where the enemy is just the same but more hitpoints and a few extra attacks. Just thought it’d be cool 
im addicted to this game lol, i dont play online though. i fought the anjanath last night and it was a game of cat and mouse, loved it. we mustve fought all over the jungle lol. he bolts off up the mountains where i cant chase, but i follow him with the paths, and seeing him jump across gaps with the setting sun and my barbaric lookin huntress was a sight to see.
he would get the upper hand so i would hide from him to heal, or use the ghillie mantle. i also used those paralyzing poison frogs on him too. 35 min battle it was, and im about to hunt another cuz i want that armor set lol
Alright so I’m gonna put a spoiler alert in case you guys don’t want spoilers on late game Elder Dragon stuff but…
Vaal Hazak is the most metal ■■■■■■■ thing I’ve seen in a long time. He’s like a combination of a deep sea fish and a rotting corpse and it’s just absolutely badass!
Whoever designed this monster deserves a raise!
And whoever directed his opening cutscenes needs an award. The way he rises out of a pile of bones and sucks the souls out of every other living thing in the room?
Now that’s how you introduce an elder dragon!
You can do a ton in Monster Hunter without ever going online. In fact, more content than most modern games have all together. But there is some endgame content that is difficult (if not quite impossible) to tackle by yourself. You certainly don’t “need” to do it and I hate it when people try to tell other people how to game. But unless you have a philosophical objection to online co-op I would encourage you to give it a try. Imagine the type of scene you describe above only know you watch your friend leaping into the back of the Anjanath to try to cut off his tail. Like all multiplayer it’s way better with people you now, but even with strangers it opens up some aspects of the game you aren’t likely to see doing single player.
I’m enjoying it so far. So many little interactive systems, it’s crazy.
This is probably my favorite part of the game. 90% of the time in games animal AI is programmed to just wait to detect a player and either flee or run up and start doing hitscan attacks. But every once in a while a game puts some effort into making their animals behave like actual animals (including Monster Hunter I can think of about 4). They hunt for food, they go to sleep, they look after their young and get in territorial disputes that don’t always end in death. Its amazing
im definitely open to playing online, but currently im striving for a couple goals in life and thus im saving money. i dont want to subscribe to PSN or any games that require subs atm. now if my brother cracks and he signs up, im definitely there to hunt with others lol
Man Nergigante is kicking my ■■■. He’s making all the other monsters in the game so far look like a bunch of chumps, and getting other players to help hasn’t been working much with his seemingly insta-kill dive attack destroying everyone. Been maining the greatsword up until now but I think it’s time to try something new. 
He’ll continue to do that from my experience.
Apart from one none of the other Elder Dragons have given me much trouble at all. The only monster that I have nearly as much trouble with are Azure Rathlos and that’s only because they never land.
I had to watch a video on custom cooking. I still don’t understand how “fresh” is determined, but it’s yet another system on a system on a system…
I do think there’s more inferred than really going on, but it doesn’t matter because it’s just fun.
I’m not in high rank yet, but so far the “gear check” monsters have been the only real issues. I’m up to the Rathalos / Diablos fights in the story.
Started with Dual Blades, but got tired of looking at monsters flying around above me, switched to Insect Glaive, which I really like, and have bow and hammer in pocket now. The rest of the weapons are too slow for me to use.
Someone on Reddit referred to the guide girl as “The freckled woman with hate in her heart” and I couldn’t have said it better.
Cheery monster slaughter because… reasons? Still fun. A bit sad, but fun.
im still scratching my head with cooking as well, im gonna do the gathering quests that have popped up for me. im still real early in the game, barely did the big mission with zor smashin through barriers. still im wondering how do you make certain dishes that give certain stats, id like more ATK and Stam
For cooking, you unlock better ingredients by doing optional quests for the chef (the Meowscular Chef in this game).
@TempusChaoti I’m reasonably sure freshness is random. In the original Monster Hunter the menus didn’t give you any indication of what the food actually did for you. You more or less had to figure it out by trial and error and the way your character reacted after eating. So it’s always been a bit mysterious. This is one of the reasons you find so many Monster Hunter superstitions like people insisting if you pet the poogie you will get better rewards. The game has become more transparent over time but many players (including me) just pick a few food combinations with predictable effects and stick with those. I almost always eat for health first, and if I have two choices I go for whatever secondary skill seems most useful.
One of the nice things about the game is that (like real life) it has depth in lots of places that you can choose to ignore. You can still be successful in the game with sub-optimal eating strategies as long as you are pursuing good strategies in general.
@Blacklash93 the Nergigante is no joke. He’s pretty uniformly considered the toughest fight in the game- including the elder dragons that show up much later. One of the things that I think is lost in people a bit in MH World, because it’s so relatively friendly to the player, is that you don’t need to rush through the story missions. It used to be you had to spend three quests gathering herbs and mushrooms and cooking meat before every fight with a low level monster. Now they have (thankfully) done away with a lot of that slog, but you still need to do some thoughtful preparation. Most people recommend getting your defense up as high as you possibly can - specifically to increase your odds of survivng some of his hugely damaging moves. This also means figuring out what armor set you want to go into battle with, grinding for the materials, making sure you have ample traps, bombs, flash pods, and knowing what your plan is. There are multiple viable strategies but you have to commit. Changing weapons is fun and might work for you, but it isn’t because the GreatSword isn’t capable of taking down Niergigante.
I actually managed to beat Nergigante solo last night. After I spent some time upgrading my armor and buffing my character with items as much as possible it went pretty smoothly. Played with my new blast hammer some but still ended up sticking with my greatsword for that fight.
You gotta take those Demondrugs and Armorskins if you’re having that much of a hard time. Either that or upgrade your armor. I end up having to do this with the Elder Dragons because they basically maul all over me otherwise.
General pro-tips for anyone looking for food stuff (i.e. @TempusChaoti and @R1stormrider )I found some little tidbits that you may or may not have found but I want to share them with everyone just in case:
Meat=Damage Boost
Fish=Defense Boost
Veggies= Elemental Resistance Boost
All good meals boost your stamina and meals with fresh ingredients buff health.
Alcohol has no direct stat boosts but offers some cool unique skills depending on how many you drink and what kind.
The food skills are really cool but usually only have a chance of activating.
When in doubt or in a hurry, the Chef’s Choice platter is always a solid pick. After a certain point all of the ingredients are fresh so you’ll get 50 health and 50 stamina guaranteed, plus small-medium boosts in most or all stats.
Personally I like to go for the Meat plate because being a Greatsword main I want to be the most help possible by hitting as hard as possible every chance I get. And occasionally there’s enough fresh stuff that I still get a huge health boost along with my large damage boost!
Take any and all food quests you get. Theyre worth the rewards in the kitchen and every new item increases the chance of feesh stuff you might get! Plus they’re all super duper easy…with a few exceptions (like say…Rathlos/Rathien Eggs).
Also, always pay with money. If you just keep doing quests/investigations you’ll be swimming in it anyway. Points are more valuable since they’re used for special stuff and using a voucher when you could use that to get huge rewards is silly (though it does pay for everyone in your group if you do).
On an unrelated note, I walked into a gas station to buy a drink and walked out with some new hunting buddies! The clerks just happened to have both got the Xbox version of the game so we exchanged info. They just bought it so I can be their sensei as @BigBadAndy was for me! 
Just to add, historically, freshness has increased the likelihood of the skills being acquired. I haven’t tested that in this game.
Anybody got the game on PS4? I need to hunt a Low Level Kadachi but I’m too lazy to set it up myself lol
PSN: swordsman09