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WIP Page: That One Boss: Monster Hunter

In the savage, Nintendo Hard world of Monster Hunter, there are plenty of powerful creatures that'll keep you on your toes. Then there are these: ferocious creatures that can cart you with a single blow, move so fast that you can barely hit them, will drag out a fight and force a loss via time out, or in some cases, all of these at once. You better have stocked up on healing items, because you're gonna need them.

First Generation (Monster Hunter and Monster Hunter Freedom)

 * Almost every single boss from the first game could arguably count due to the sheer amount of bullshit thrown at you: really janky and awful hitboxes, attacks that come out with no windup or tells, and plenty of overly aggressive small monster enemies to batter you around and help the monster you're hunting stunlock you to death... even diehard, longtime fans of the series will agree that the first game was a very rough outing.
 * As far as specific examples go, Plesioth is often considered to be the patron saint of hard Monster Hunter battles. Just one look at its dorky sharklike face is enough to throw longtime fans of the series into a frothing rage, and it's because of one little word: hipcheck. It doesn't matter if you're in front of the attack, behind it, in front of the monster itself, behind the monster itself, Plesioth's entire body and a good distance around it become a giant hitbox. So once it goes in for the hipcheck, you're getting hit. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It loves spamming this attack too, so have fun dealing with that!
 * Another annoying aspect of Plesioth's fight is that if there's a body of water nearby, it will jump in and swim around, sniping you with water beams while it's completely safe from retribution. If you forgot to bring Sonic Bombs or god forbid, ran out of them, you're not going to force Plesioth out of the water. It'll come back to shore whenever it feels like it, making it not just possible, but downright probable for you to lose by timing out.
 * The series' posterboy himself, Rathalos. Not because he's hard-hitting, but because of the dreaded "Rathalos World Tour" maneuver. Any time during his fight, he can randomly abandon ship and fly all over the map. And by all over the map, we mean all over the map. He can fly to any number of locations, only to leave as quickly as he arrived, find a new location, and repeat the process ad nauseum. If you're fighting a Rathalos that's in the mood to spam this, that flexible 50 minute time limit suddenly becomes a lot stricter... Thankfully, later entries would make this less of an issue and make him more of a moderately irritating, but otherwise manageable boss.
 * Khezu is not only a literal dickhead for its phallic appearance, but a figurative one for being such a pain in the ass! It's built to last, and will make sure you never get to attack it by frequently generating an electric aura that will knock you on your butt if you hit it while it's up. Its slow movements also give way to surprisingly fast attacks, its neck-stretch attack hits you from weird angles, and if you fight it in a cave, it'll cling to the ceiling and rain electric balls on you from above. And when its enraged, it goes from sluggish to spastic, and has a really nasty electrified charge attack that comes out with very little warning, and will usually one-shot you unless you've got a ton of electric resistance. Another issue (that was thankfully rectified in later games) is that because it technically can't "see" you because of its lack of eyes, you don't have the option to lock onto it, or more importantly abuse invincibility frames by running away and using a Superman Dive to tank its attacks. Thankfully, Monster Hunter Rise would give it a long-awaited beating with the nerf stick, but even a High Rank Khezu can still put up a good fight.
 * Take a goofy, mostly-nonthreatening Yian Kut-Ku and a moderately difficult Rathian, toss them into a blender, and throw in some meth and crack for good measure. The result is the Yian Garuga, a ferocious, rabid monster that fights like both, and is far stronger than the two of them combined. Its attacks do ridiculous damage, they come out fast and with very little warning, and when it's enraged, it loves to bowl you over by spamming its powerful charge attacks. Surprisingly, while most first and second gen monsters would get better in later entries, Yian Garuga got worse.
 * Monoblos and Diablos are often a nasty difficulty spike in the games they appear in. They combine wyvern ferocity with the deadly horns and bulk of ceratopsian dinosaurs into a freakishly fast, powerful, and durable package. What they lack in elemental breaths or other fancy tricks they make up for in raw strength and aggression, frequently charging at you with startling speed and trying to gore you with their horn(s), smashing you into jelly with their clubbed tails, or burrowing into the ground and spearing you from below. Any hit you take from these guys is going to hurt, and they've got a good chance of stunning you. So if you're seeing stars while a Diablos or Monoblos gets ready to charge? Pray that your Palicos or hunting buddies can knock you out of it, because you're probably not going to be able to take that hit.
 * While White Monoblos would truly come into its own as a threat in the fourth generation, Black Diablos has been an even bigger pain since her very conception. Sometimes she's merely a faster, more aggressive Diablos. Sometimes she's packing even deadlier, spammable, unique moves like a leaping tackle or a charge that she aims. But no matter the case, she's living proof that the only thing worse than a Diablos is a horny Diablos.

Second Generation (Dos and Freedom Unite)

 * Tigrex. Unlike most of the series' mascots it doesn't have any fancy gimmicks: no elemental breath, no tail spikes, none of that. It's just a ferocious beast that overwhelms you with pure speed and strength alone. This T. Rex-headed terror loves to rush you down with a powerful charging attack, and if you dodge it? It whips its head around and tries to run you over again and again. Don't think you can cheese it by staying away from the head and whaling at its tail and limbs, because it has a full-body spin attack that has very little windup and will send you flying. And once you finally get up, you're likely to be sent flying again when it decides to go on another charging frenzy. Keep in mind that this is how Tigrex is on a good day: once you've pissed it off, you're introduced to a truly devastating rage mode where it's even faster and more aggressive than before and can chain its charges into spin attacks, rapid bites, or a powerful pounce. The silver lining is that it's a lot more fragile in this state, but... well, do you want to be up close and personal with a pissed off Tigrex?
 * Tigrex has several cousins that are just as strong and fast, but with nasty gimmicks of their own. And Nargacuga is the first of these cousins: it has a lot more finesse than its savage relative, and will leap and dash all over the place while you're trying to swat it. It can also fight very effectively at range by slinging tail spikes at you or by simply taking advantage of its tail being an organic bullwhip and hitting you with long-reaching tail lashes for massive damage. Oh, and if you thought Tigrex's spin attack was fast? Nargacuga's is even faster.
 * Blangonga. It's relatively low on the monster totem pole, so why is it so fast? Why does it hit so hard?! Why can it summon packs of Blangos to help it out?! It almost comes off as a tutorial for the insanely powerful Rajang, but it's even more of a spaz and can immobilize you with its snowman-inducing ice balls before going in for a big hit. Its Blango minions are also way bulkier than the minions summoned by the -Drome bosses, and they'll happily smack you around with icy projectiles and leave you a sitting duck for big boss Blangonga to maul you to death.
 * Just looking at it, you can tell Rajang is not a monster you want to fuck with. It's a huge horned monkey with scary red eyes, making it look like some kind of simian demon. And once the hunt is on, it fights like one too. It leaps around like a Blangonga on crack, and its charge attack is surprisingly hard to dodge since it hops around in a zig-zag pattern. When it isn't trying to maul you to death with its flurry of punches or slam attacks, it's trying to fry you with powerful electric attacks such as a massive ball and a thunder beam that's likely to cart you if it connects. And once you've really pissed it off? It goes Super Saiyan, and even its weakest attacks will take off most of your health bar with a single blow. Go into a Rajang hunt with anything less than top-tier gear, and prepare to be on the receiving end of some Hot Rajang Dick.
 * Akantor is called the Black God for a reason. With bites that inflict Defense Down status, attacks that generate massive lava explosions all over the battlefield, and ridiculous strength, this demonic-looking wyvern is a foe to be feared. But even those attacks pale in comparison to its infamous charge attack. Despite being a sluggish Mighty Glacier, Akantor is so damned huge that it's still incredibly hard to keep it from trampling you. And even Superman diving through it isn't a safe bet, because its massive size makes it likely that you'll get up, lose your invincibility frames, and get squashed anyway because it hadn't completely passed over you yet. And if you're currently inflicted with Defense Down, you're likely to be sent straight back to camp if the attack connects.

Third Generation (Tri, Portable 3rd, and Tri Ultimate)

 * Take a Tyrannosaurus Rex, splice in some Godzilla DNA, and give it an appetite capable of wiping out entire ecosystems. That's the Deviljho in a nutshell, and it's exactly as difficult to kill as you would expect. This thing is stupidly huge, but a lot quicker on its feet than it has any right to be. Thanks to its corrosive drool, its bite attacks inflict you with a nasty Defense Down debuff which is exactly the last thing you need when fighting a monster that hits like a nuke to begin with. And if you try to keep your distance, it'll fire off a sweeping breath attack that will inflict you with Dragonblight and nullify the elemental properties of your weapon. That would be scary on its own, but the reason why Deviljho is infamous among the community is due to it invading otherwise normal hunting quests long before you'll be ready for it. If you can't kill your target before running out of the Dung Bombs needed to keep this beast at bay, an otherwise unremarkable hunt may have just become completely unsalvageable.
 * Deviljho's That One Boss status also leads to the Qurupeco counting as this by association. It's hardly a powerful opponent by itself, but its ability to summon a Deviljho with its mimicked roars will turn hunts against one into a desperate rush to shut it up before everyone's least favorite party crasher decides to join the fun..
 * And introduced in Tri Ultimate is the Savage Deviljho, an even angrier, hungrier Deviljho constantly emitting Dragon energy. It fights like an enraged Deviljho by default, and has an even deadlier rage mode on top of that, one that gives its sweeping Dragonbreath even more range.
 * While softened up in Portable 3rd and beyond, Barroth was a notorious example of this trope when it made its debut in Tri. The game's been fairly easy up until you get the mission to hunt it, where you're suddenly fighting a stupidly fast and aggressive monster that can take a metric shit-ton of punishment thanks to its mud armor, cover you in mud that will leave you slow and helpless, and wipe out most of your health bar with a single charge attack. While long since nerfed, many Tri veterans will attest to it being a truly painful hurdle for them to overcome.
 * This generation marks the debut of Barioth, a tundra-dwelling cousin of Tigrex and Nargacuga with the face of a smilodon. Not only is it every bit as fast and aggressive as you'd expect a creature of its pedigree to be, but it has a nasty trick to make it stand out from the pack: it breathes huge ice tornadoes at you, and getting hit will result in you being frozen solid and helpless against whatever attack it uses next. Simple, but effective.
 * No matter if you fight it on land or at sea, "mercy" is not a word in Lagiacrus' lexicon. It's at its strongest in the water, where it's a Lightning Bruiser with hard-hitting, wide ranged moves it can use at any angle while you swim around at a truly pathetic speed and try to fight both Lagiacrus itself and the terrible underwater controls. But if you fight it on land, it's still a brutal opponent and it'll quickly hop back into the water anyway. Its attacks will often induce Thunderblight to stun you or Waterblight to mess with your Stamina, and being inflicted with either status ailment means you're up shit creek without a paddle.
 * Speaking of annoyingly strong flagship monsters, Brachydios is a serious contender for this trope. It fights nothing like its fellow Brute Wyverns, being a highly mobile and evasive Lightning Bruiser who will beat you black and blue with fists covered in slime while hopping out of attacking range and leaping all the way across the battlefield to get to you. Oh, and that slime it uses? It explodes, and when (not if, WHEN) it slimes you, you have to drop everything and roll like crazy in order to get it off, before it blows up by itself or Brachydios detonates it with another attack. It will also lay slime traps that eventually explode after a while, or if it's pissed off, almost immediately. It's not inaccurate to say that fighting a Brachydios is like fighting Mike Tyson in a minefield with dynamite attached to his fists.
 * If you want to beat the G-rank quests added to 3U, you've got to go through Goldbeard Ceadeus first. And while none of his attacks are particularly dangerous, he has a stupid amount of health that is nearly impossible to eat through in the fifty minutes you're allotted. And he doesn't follow the same rules as the vanilla Ceadeus: you don't have the option to repel him, you have to kill him. And his monstrous health pool isn't divied up between separate battles like other high-health Elder Dragons, so you have to beat him in one go. While playing with friends will take the edge off, they're the sole edge you've got in this fight: good luck trying to find random players to team up with in a game with a playerbase that has mostly moved on to later entries in the series. Especially since outside of pirate servers, Nintendo and Capcom have discontinued this game's internet service as a whole.
 * Gold Rathian and Silver Rathalos are already a force to be reckoned with thanks to their janky Gen 1 attack patterns, shared ability to inflict Burn and Poison statuses, and nigh-impenetrable armor on most of their body parts. But one sadistic endgame quest pits you against both of them at once on the Tower Top, which is a single large battlefield with no smaller sub-areas you can fight them separately in. Fun. At least they're optional if you don't care about fighting Hallowed Jhen Mohran, the final Bonus Boss. But if you're interested in seeing everything the game has to offer, you'll have to deal with them sooner or later.
 * Returning in Portable 3rd and Tri Ultimate, Nargacuga's as tough as ever, but he also bought two stronger cousins with him. When Green Nargacuga's engraged, it turns into a total spaz who will constantly try to pounce on you, and now uses its deadly tail slam twice in a row. Its tail spikes can also inflict the KO status to leave you helpless and dizzy. Then there's Lucent Nargacuga, who spends most of the fight completely invisible, only turning visible when it goes in for the kill. Not only does it retain Green's agility and double tail slam, but many of its attacks will fling poisonous tail spikes all over the place. Thankfully, hitting it with Dung Bombs and Paint Balls will cause it to emit fumes you can use to track it with, but you've still got to put in a lot of work to kill it.

Fourth Generation (4, 4U, Generations, and Generations Ultimate)

 * Nerscylla may be a spider the size of a Mack truck, but that won't stop it from web-zipping all over the place like Spider-Man, flattening you with its powerful and speedy attacks as well as inflicting you with Poison and Sleep for good measure. It's also annoyingly fond of the Ceiling Cling maneuver, so here's hoping you packed one of the few weapons that can hit it up there!
 * Flagship monster Gore Magala is one tough customer, due to being an aggressive brute with lightning-fast melee attacks and explosive Frenzy blasts with a fuckhuge blast radius. And during one of its fights, you have to deal with it on a cramped pirate ship when he ambushes you and your crew at sea. Funnily enough, its gimmick of inflicting you with the Frenzy virus is actually easy to overcome compared to other monster gimmicks, but its brutal and practical fighting style make it a terror even during Low Rank missions.
 * While she's been around for a while, Pink Rathian is known for being a nasty brick wall in this particular game. Thanks to being a Gen 1 monster, Rathian already has problems with attacks that come out instantaneously and with little to no tells, randomly breaking out into charge attacking fits that turn her entire body into a hitbox, and that damned Poison-inducing backflip attack. But Pink Rathian's heightened speed and aggression make that Gen 1 jank even worse, and she has a nasty new version of her dreaded backflip attack that hits you at weird angles thanks to it being less of a backflip and more of an aerial breakdance.
 * As if Yian Garuga wasn't a menace right out the gate, it learned some new tricks in 4 that make it even more of a pain in the ass. One such trick has it stun you with one of its grating metallic roars so it can nail you with a cheap, unavoidable Poison tail attack. It also has an obnoxious double beak slam attack that comes out of nowhere, can be chained into from its other attacks, and has some serious hitbox issues that lead to you getting hit even when you clearly dodge it. Now combine this with the Gen 1 jank carried over from the early games, and you've got a bonafide pain in the ass.
 * Since Plesioth isn't fightable in 4 and 4U on account of being demoted to a fishing minigame, his desert-dwelling cousin Cephadrome fills in as the game's resident pain-in-the-ass Piscine Wyvern. He's got Plesioth's tendency to swim (in sand, not water) away from your attacks and spam hipchecks with horrible hitboxes, but he's also packing some new toys of his own, such as the ability to paralyze you if his fins brush up against you while he's swimming in the sand. At least he can't stall out a loss by hiding in bodies of water...
 * Much like Goldbeard Ceadeus before him, Dalamadur's another titanic serpentine Elder Dragon who blocks off 4U’s G-Rank quests. Also like him, he wouldn't be so hard to beat if it wasn't for the fact that his health pool is stupidly massive, and makes solo runs against him utter hell due to it allowing him to tank everything you throw at him and force you to lose by running out the clock. And that's just the garden-variety Dalamadur, Shah Dalamadur's even nastier! Thankfully he's at least optional unless you’re gunning for 100%.
 * Despite being a flaming lion Elder Dragon, what made Teostra dangerous in past games was his tendency to spam his 0-windup charge attacks. He's still prone to this, but in 4U and Gen U he augments his charges with scorching hot fire attacks that will reduce you and any hunting buddies to ash. His claw swipes and bites come out stupidly fast, and a lot of his attacks will inflict you with the Blast status which will eventually blow you up for a ton of damage if you don’t drop everything and dispel it. But what is by far the nastiest tool in his arsenal is his Supernova. The tell is ridiculously subtle and hard to pick up on (a soft growl that is unlike his other vocalizations), and even if you know what to listen for, you have barely any time to dodge because the massive burst of fire that follows comes out fast, hits hard, and practically nukes everything in his immediate radius.
 * Tigerstripe Zamtrios is the monster who rolls out the G-Rank welcome wagon in 4 Ultimate, and he is a nasty speedbump for fresh-faced G-Rank players. While vanilla Zamtrios would periodically cycle through its "forms" and become a giant, helpless punching bag in its inflated form, Tigerstripe is ridiculously while inflated, and it can swap between its inflated and deflated states at will. Its belly flops and rolling attacks deal a ton of damage to the point that they might very well one-hit KO you outright, and its water attacks eat through your health like its going out of style. And as if fighting it didn't suck already, it's also capable of paralyzing you, so have fun dealing with that!