The summary of ‘The TOP 10 DEFENSIVE skills in Iceborne – And what to avoid! | MHW Iceborne’

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00:00:0000:26:02

In the YouTube video, the creator evaluates the best defensive skills in "Monster Hunter World: Iceborne," focusing on strategies that balance defense and damage to improve overall gameplay efficiency. They emphasize the importance of integrating a few key defensive skills, such as Windproof, Earplugs, and Stun Resist, which are particularly effective against specific monster attacks. Skills like "guts" provide crucial survivability by allowing players to survive lethal hits. The "evade window" skill is highlighted for its utility in dodging, though it requires skill and familiarity with monster behavior.

Furthermore, the video discusses the benefits of skills and equipment to enhance team survivability and efficiency, such as gobbler speed-eating, satiated skills, and elemental resistance skills. Skills like Tool Specialist and Divine Blessing are praised for their significant defensive benefits, particularly in reducing mantle recharge times and damage. The most critical defensive skills discussed include Health Boost and Fortify, which are considered indispensable for surviving tough fights.

The latter part of the video critiques overrated defense skills like Defense Boost, the Val set's Super Recovery, and ailment resistance skills, arguing that these are less efficient compared to item solutions or other defensive skills. The speaker also evaluates niche skills like Evade Extender and Heroics but finds them situational or requiring rebalancing. Finally, they discuss the limitations and practicalities of various skills, concluding with a call for better balance from developers.

00:00:00

In this part of the video, the creator evaluates the best defensive skills in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. They explain their philosophy of defense, emphasizing that the goal is to take as little defense as needed to focus more on damage. They argue that while most players and speedrunners prioritize damage to quickly defeat monsters, incorporating one or two defensive skills can significantly ease fights and save time. The video will feature a prioritized top ten list of the best defensive skills and a discussion on overrated ones. Starting at 10th place, they mention Windproof and Earplugs, noting their situational usefulness and high cost, particularly highlighting Windproof’s effectiveness against Lunastra’s supernova attack.

00:03:00

In this part of the video, the discussion revolves around strategies for handling stuns and roars from monsters in the game. Key points include:
– The supernova attack causing damage over time (D-O-T) while the player is stunned due to wind pressure.
– Considering earplugs to mitigate frequent roars from multiple monsters, which can stun and reduce the player’s damage output.
– Earplugs can be effective at level four, as they significantly reduce stun duration.
– Situations where earplugs are useful, such as when a monster’s roar is followed by an attack that forms an unavoidable combo.
– The high expense of skills like earplugs and windproof, and their situational use depending on the monster.
– Stun resist is highlighted as a valuable skill since all monsters can stun, but it’s also expensive and typically lower-priority.
– Specific mention of its utility against the monster Teostra, which can quickly stun players and follow up with powerful attacks.
– The segment also introduces the skill “guts,” allowing players to survive a potentially lethal hit with one HP, useful against monsters like arch-tempered Nergigante and extreme Behemoth.

00:06:00

In this part of the video, the speaker discusses certain skills and equipment in the game, focusing particularly on strategies and their effectiveness. They start by mentioning the “guts” skill, accessible through a charm or specific weapon, which has become less desirable compared to its previous versions. The “basal armor” is noted to be more accessible now but still not great overall. The speaker emphasizes the importance of eating for feline safeguard at the canteen for additional team lives. They then move on to the “evade window” skill, likening its effect to “Dark Souls” gameplay by offering large i-frames during rolls, making it useful for avoiding damage and maintaining attack uptime. This skill, however, requires familiarity with monster moves and is costly in terms of skill levels and decoration slots. Lastly, in sixth place, the “wide range” skill is discussed, known for its ability to heal teammates when the player uses a potion.

00:09:00

In this part of the video, the speaker discusses the effectiveness and trade-offs of building a character with five levels of a particular skill set that includes gobbler speed-eating and satiated skills, which are crucial for healing and buffing teammates efficiently. This setup significantly enhances team survivability by preventing teammates from getting one-shot and allowing them to focus more on attacking the monster rather than healing themselves. However, the role of a healer comes with greater responsibility and higher consumable usage, which might deter some players. Additionally, the speaker highlights the importance of elemental resistance skills, which offer significant defensive benefits against specific elemental attacks and are cost-effective due to their low decoration slot requirements. This method improves overall fight performance by enhancing survivability and reducing the chances of being one-shotted by elemental attacks.

00:12:00

In this part of the video, the focus is on building defensive skills. Specifically, it highlights the effectiveness of the Tool Specialist skill, which enhances the functionality of mantles by reducing their recharge time. This is considered crucial in dealing with challenging scenarios, as it allows players to frequently use powerful mantles like the Temporal Mantle and Rocksteady Mantle. The Tool Specialist Secret skill, available through the Lunastra Master rank armor, further improves this by enabling nearly constant use of these mantles, thus providing significant defensive advantages.

Additionally, the video discusses the Divine Blessing skill, praised for its damage reduction capabilities. This skill scales with the player’s level and the game’s progression, making it increasingly valuable against tougher monsters. The ability to reduce damage by a percentage rather than a fixed amount offers substantial protection. The Divine Blessing Secret skill is highlighted for requiring only two pieces of the relevant armor set to activate, making it highly accessible and powerful for defense.

00:15:00

In this segment of the video, the speaker discusses the efficiency of certain armor set pieces for difficult fights and monsters in Iceborne. They emphasize the importance of two builds: the tool specialist secret builds and the divine blessing secret builds, which offer increased survivability with minimal loss in damage. The second most important skill mentioned is fortify, which boosts damage and defense significantly after the player dies, making it useful for extremely tough monsters. However, the top defensive skill is health boost, as it prevents one-shot kills by increasing the health bar, making it indispensable for survivability. The speaker concludes the top 10 defensive skills list and introduces the next topic on overrated defense skills, starting with the defense boost skill, which is only considered decent for beginners due to its early availability and low cost.

00:18:00

In this segment of the video, the speaker discusses the utility and drawbacks of various armor skills in a game. They start with “defense boost,” noting that by late game, players should rely more on dodging skills and better defensive armor like gold radiant armor with health boost and divine blessing. The speaker argues that defense boost is too costly and unnecessary compared to critical eye, which adds damage.

They then critique the “super recovery skill” from the Val set, which includes recovery speed and recovery up. These skills, according to the speaker, are ineffective since items like max potions can instantly fill your health bar. The Val set’s super recovery skill doesn’t provide significant health restoration, making it inferior.

Next, they cover “ailment resistance skills,” suggesting that while these could be useful, they are generally not necessary. The speaker advises bringing specific resistances for particular monsters, like paralysis resist against Kirin, but dismisses others like sleep or poison resist, recommending simple item solutions instead.

Finally, they evaluate the “evade extender skill,” describing it as potentially useful for certain weapons to chase monsters aggressively, but suggesting that evade window is better for surviving attacks. The inclusion of evade extender can also be practical for heavy bow gun users to outspace their surroundings.

00:21:00

In this part of the video, the speaker discusses various skills and their utility in a gaming context. They find Evade Extender to have limited use, being helpful only in niche scenarios like fighting the extreme behemoth. They wish it occupied a smaller decoration slot. The speaker also critiques the Heroics skill, which provides a damage boost but requires the player to take damage, making it infrequent for skilled players. They suggest Heroics needs rebalancing.

They move on to the Quick Sheath skill, noting its usefulness in specific situations such as avoiding attacks from arch-tempered Nergigante. They think Quick Sheath could benefit from a buff as sheathing is generally fast in the game. Lastly, the speaker addresses the Guard and Guard Up skills, crucial for shield weapons like lance and gunlance but finds them a frustrating necessity. They argue these weapons should inherently excel at guarding without needing additional skill points, suggesting a problem with weapon balancing.

00:24:00

In this segment, the speaker discusses the utility of various defensive skills in the game, focusing on iron skin, survival expert, and divine blessing secret. They explain that iron skin is meant to counteract defense down effects but is less practical than divine blessing secret. Survival expert is deemed too conditional and complex, as it requires specific interactions and is not as useful as simply using a max potion. The speaker critiques these skills as poorly balanced and not worth their investment compared to other defensive options. They conclude by expressing hope for better balancing from the game developers and thanking their supporters.

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