Hunting Stuff is a Thing I Do.

So - finally faced off against Shagaru Magala.
I'll go ahead and start off by saying that urgent was my first quest failure in MH4U. The first time I challenged Shagaru Magala, I wasn't thinking about it too much, and I went in with the same (default/beginning) armor I had been using the whole game, and my trusty Funayuki Reaver. I actually did better than I would have expected had I known what the fight would be like beforehand. I severed the tail and broke both horns (completing the subquest - but ending via subquest wasn't really an option), and I'm sure I was probably only a few L3s away from killing it, especially now that I have actually slayed Shagaru after my second attempt.

What really killed me was my lack of inventory. I went into the Shagaru fight the first time with my general sentiment of ~idgaf - I'll scout this monster, try to take it down, but if I triple-kart, I'll work on a more thoughtful approach~. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I had neglected to restock anything to restore stamina, and I haven't really been using mega potions at all, so yeah... By the time I was stuck at yellow sharpness with only one whetstone left and no opportunities to safely sharpen, with my stamina maximum severely cut down a couple stages...there was only so much dodging of those ridiculous off-screen homing attacks in addition to the other two major sources of attacks that I could do, and I eventually got one-shotted by a homing blast that I didn't even see fired off through Shagaru. It was actually quite hilarious to watch.

All of that said, I have to say - as much as I enjoyed the Shagaru fight for the most part, I kinda hate what they did with it on a few levels. Most of Shagaru's attacks are fine, and the area's cool, and I don't even have a huge problem with lava-geyser-esque flares that randomly burst from the ground during those segments of the fight when Shagaru really gets violent. What I do have a problem with is the fact that they had such a great fight and monster concept, but decided to throw in those gimmicky-as-**** dynamic homing shots and ~burst mines~ that go offscreen and/or regularly come from offscreen directions, and of course go right through Shagaru. It is one thing for the game to demand that a hunter be highly aware of their environment and the monsters they hunt, it is another thing entirely - and a very cheap thing indeed - when they go to the extreme of designing attacks that are dangerous more so because of hardware limitations and control constraints than for any non-immersion-wrecking, legitimate reasons. Again, in retrospect, I'm surprised I even managed to get as far as the tailcut and subquest complete/horns broken during my first challenge, considering those homing blasts pretty much one-shot me in the initial armor. Those gimmicks made for a significantly duller fight than I would have liked, and I am disappointed at how the Shagaru fight was so close, but so far in terms of being an awesome fight to remember.

Ah well. At least in my second fight, I had the sound of the homing blasts memorized so well that I usually knew when they were coming. Man...and I thought Stygian Zinogre was annoying with its proximity-mine-esque dragonbugs, but Shagaru has outdone that in full force. Too bad those attacks are mostly made up of artificial difficulty, with an almost negligible redeeming proportion of legitimate attack qualities. The rest of the moveset's alright though. That said, I think Alatreon would still quite likely wipe the floor with Shagaru, especially since Alatreon has dat surprise Dragonclaw, whereas Shagaru's claw attacks are very clearly-telegraphed, Zinogre-esque easy-to-dodge-but-punishing-to-feel attacks.

And that's enough of that. It probably almost goes without saying that my first attempt at Shagaru Magala was where I drew the line and finally decided ~**** it - learning monster attacks and getting skilled is an essential part of the MH experience, but getting cheap-one-shotted by gimmicky offscreen homing attacks simply because I'm toughing it out in starting armor is not absolutely necessary~. That, and after fighting Shagaru the first time, I really wanted to make Schattenstolz, because I wanted to have that poetic justice factor of slaying the **** with the weapon made from its own kin (and its previous form - if the story is to be taken as true that the Shagaru from your urgent is the same Gore from the previous urgent). On a sidenote - I realized after my first fight that all I would need is another Shagaru tail to upgrade Schattenstolz, so that's pretty wicked, although there may be even better options on the horizon.

And now that is out of the way - enough of the ~failure~ story. On to the success story.
Challenged Shagaru Magala a second time, now with the [Sharp+1, Speed Sharpening] set and Schattenstolz. No karts, 3 potions, 3 mega potions, 4 whetstones, 15 minutes, all muh breaks. Basically a fairly straightforward fight as long as I'm not getting one-shotted or nearly karted by those aforementioned gimmick attacks.

On a sidenote - I didn't notice a huge difference between mounting monsters without the Mounting Master skill or whatever it was that the initial set comes with. Heh - all this time, I figured that skill might be worth something, but meh...maybe not.

*I did manage to complete the request line that unlocks the LR Brachy fight. On a sidenote, having beaten Brachy gives me access to Diablos parts, and indeed - even the possibility of a [Sharp+1, Critical Draw] or the [Sharp+1, Focus] sets in that limbo of LR and HR that is 6*. Probably won't bother though at this point, since that would basically just be making LR armor when I am just far enough in the game that making anything less than HR armor would basically just be novelty, or probably become quickly outclassed by another armor set I could make in HR.

*I also cleaned up a few ~main story quests~. I annihilated Monoblos without too much incident - also enjoyed the fight quite a bit, even though it basically just seems like a somewhat derpy Diablos with a moderately more manageable temper. After that I noticed that I wasn't too far off from being able to forge the Executioner, which is just a bit better than my current GS (Red Pincer) as long as I'm using it with a Sharp+1 set. Executioner is also one of the only GS options available to me that doesn't wind up on a dead-end, and can actually become a decent endgame GS. So yeah, basically my main focus is making the Executioner. I'm also somewhat tempted to make the Monoblos S armor, just because it still has a pretty cool 'blos aesthetic, and also, it looks like I can get AuL and Adrenaline+2 with it...if I wanted to take the time farming for all the required parts...

*Meanwhile, since we can apparently take out Deviljho in LR now, I'm thinking about also trying to make some time to do that, and maybe at least get an early armortalon and powertalon - and possibly start down its GS path if it's not too much trouble (sadly, Jho path seems kinda meh in 4U).

Took out Frenzied Brachydios and Frenzied Deviljho yesterday.
I'm on the fence about whether I want to go do some of the optional/request HR quests that I overlooked while blitzing the main story/keys, or continue blitzing the story. I wanna get to 10* soon and maybe go online after that, but I like unlocking the extra stuff. Heck, I've even got some more Diva songs now.