Aug 16, 2018  - The overall damage is further modified by the monster's hitzone (i.e., some monsters have heads that are highly resistant to damage) Status Elements (Paralysis, Sleep, Poison) work a little differently in that they have a fixed chance to proc. Feb 07, 2020  To see how the chances work out well with -affinity: Your chance in -affinity seen as total damage x0.75 will give you a legit number you have to decrease. For example: If your weapon has 300 damage and -20% affinity, it's like a normal weapon with 285. 300 in 4 of 5 hits will cause you to deal 1425. And 1425/5 = 285. Dec 19, 2018 Affinity is a statistic that helps determine how much chance a weapon has to deal additional damage in Monster Hunter World. It’s really important to the meta of balance and has a larger impact on the tail end of the game and the high-end, high-rank hunts in particular.

Published 1:37 PM EDT Aug 8, 2019

Is the Weakness Exploit skill your bae? Perhaps you wish the elemental attack skills cleaned up more nicely?

Capcom revealed several new changes to “Monster Hunter World: Iceborne” that touched on both skills plus the weapon of choice for lovers of exploding pointy thingies, the Gunlance.

The gameplay adjustments were revealed by Producer Ryuzo Tsujimoto and Director Daisuke Ichihara during a Capcom TV interview in Capcom's Japanese youTube channel.

Here’s a rundown of the changes that were announced.

Weakness Exploit nerfed and buffed (sort of)

Having a skill both nerfed and buffed probably sounds like it doesn’t make sense. Basically, it’s kind of like explaining a breakup: It’s complicated.

For those unfamiliar with the skill, Weakness Exploit grants you an affinity bonus when attacking a monster’s more fleshy weak point. Essentially, this raises your chance of triggering a critical strike with every hit, which does 25 % more damage than a regular hit. In the original Monster Hunter World, the affinity bonus is:

  • Level 1: 15%
  • Level 2: 30%
  • Level 3: 50%

This is arguably one of the most — if not the most — popular skill in the game thanks to the easy extra damage you can rack up with it plus the fact that it’s relatively easy to acquire. That all changes with Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, however. Here are the new values for Weakness Exploit in the expansion:

Affinity
  • Level 1: 10% affinity boost on weak spots, additional 5% affinity boost on wounded parts.
  • Level 2: 15% affinity boost on weak spots, additional 15% affinity boost on wounded parts.
  • Level 3: 30% affinity boost on weak spots, additional 20% affinity boost on wounded parts.

As you can see, the affinity bonus is essentially halved from the previous iteration if you're just simply hitting a weak point. In order to get the old affinity percentages back, you will need to use the clutch claw attack to soften that specific part as well. This is arguably a nerf as you now have to take extra steps in order to get the old percentages back. It’s also a challenge for lighter weapons since their clutch claw attack initially procures slinger ammo and require extra steps to soften and wound.

More: I hunted Barioth in Monster Hunter World Iceborne. And it was good

So where does the “buff” part come in? Well, in the past, Weakness Exploit only worked on weak points. In Iceborne, every part that is softened via the clutch claw becomes a weak point, so previously hard parts are now susceptible to Weakness Exploit. I assume the softening or wounding requirement was added to not only encourage the use of the Clutch Claw but to also balance gameplay a bit as getting easy 50% affinity on essentially any body part at this point might be a bit broken.

It’s elemental, dear Watson, but not elementless

Diplomatically speaking, elemental weapons in Monster Hunter World were, well, a bit underwhelming overall. With the exception of cases such as melting Kulve Taroth’s hard shell with Thunder, elemental builds weren’t as viable as they were in the past.

The fact that World had a cap on elemental damage made it even more of a challenge for elemental builds to shine. Depending on the element, the game imposed a cap that limits your damage at a certain point, regardless if you stack more elemental damage on top of that.

More: We play first few hours of Monster Hunter World Iceborne

Iceborne tries to shake things up a bit by increasing the damage for elemental attacks. It also adds an extra level of attack with the introduction of Level 6.

Here are examples of the changes from World to Iceborne.

How Does Dmg And Affinity Work In Monster Hunter World Iceborne

CORONA SWORD AND SHIELD

This weapon was previously capped at 230.

  • Fire Attack, Level 1: Unchanged at 210.
  • Fire Attack, Level 2: From 230 to 240.
  • Fire Attack, Level 3: From 230 to 280.
  • Fire Attack, Level 4: From 230 to 290.
  • Fire Attack, Level 5: From 230 to 300.
  • Fire Attack, Level 6: Nonexistent in World, 320 in Iceborne.

LEGIANA RIMESPIRE SWORD AND SHIELD

This weapon was previously capped at 430

  • Ice Attack, Level 1: Unchanged at 360.
  • Ice Attack, Level 2: Unchanged at 390.
  • Ice Attack, Level 3: Unchanged at 430.
  • Ice Attack, Level 4: From 430 to 450.
  • Ice Attack, Level 5: From 430 to 460.
  • Ice Attack, Level 6: Nonexistent in World, 500 in Iceborne.

HOLY SABERS DUAL BLADE

World

This weapon was previously capped at 160

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  • Water Attack, Level 1: Unchanged at 150.
  • Water Attack, Level 2: From 160 to 180.
  • Water Attack, Level 3: From 160 to 220.
  • Water Attack, Level 4: From 160 to 230.
  • Water Attack, Level 5: From 160 to 230.
  • Water Attack, Level 6: Nonexistent in World, 240 in Iceborne.

Iceborne also adds a new skill that rewards hunters with additional elemental damage plus the Free Element status to unlock a weapon’s hidden element. The requirement is for them to be continuously attacking in order to trigger it.

The question now is whether the additional elemental attack increase proves to be an actual increase or just par for the course after you factor in the increased parameters for not just weapons but the monsters as well.

Another change involves the Elementless skill, which was popular in World for folks who use weapons like the Divine Slasher or Spread Shot Heavy Bowguns. In the past, you get a 10% damage increase by running the skill. In Iceborne, that bonus has been reduced to 5%.

Maximum Might makes right?

This is another popular skill next to Weakness Exploit for folks who want to get additional affinity. It doesn’t require only hitting Weak Points but requires full stamina to trigger its affinity bonus.

Here’s how it worked in World:

  • Level 1: Increases Affinity by 10%
  • Level 2: Increases Affinity by 20%
  • Level 3: Increases Affinity by 30%

Undelete plus. In Iceborne, Maximum Might goes up to Level 5 but also gets tweaks in how the skill triggers or shuts down from Level 1 to Level 4. Here’s how the skill now works in Iceborne:

How Does Dmg And Affinity Work In Monster Hunter World Mods

  • Level 1: Increases Affinity by 10%. Stamina must be full for 5 seconds in order for it to trigger. Lasts 2 extra seconds after stamina decreases.
  • Level 2: Increases Affinity by 20%. Stamina must be full for 5 seconds in order for it to trigger. Lasts 3 extra seconds after stamina decreases.
  • Level 3: Increases Affinity by 30%. Stamina must be full for 5 seconds in order for it to trigger. Lasts 3 extra seconds after stamina decreases.
  • Level 4: Increases Affinity by 40%. Stamina must be full for 5 seconds in order for it to trigger. Lasts 4 extra seconds after stamina decreases.
  • Level 5: Increases Affinity by 40%. Triggers as soon as stamina is full. Stops as soon as stamina decreases.

The five-second requirement can be considered as a bit of a nerf since dodging and rolling now means you'll have to wait that long for Maximum Might to activate once again. At the same time, Level 4 and Level 5 could potentially be interesting because they provide the same affinity boost but different requirements for triggering the effect as well as when the effect stops. It’s quite possible that some folks might prefer Level 4 to Level 5 depending on the situation.

Point the pointy end and boom

One weapon that got some love during the Capcom TV interview is the boomstick known as the Gunlance. The weapon got several changes but the likely biggest one is the addition of a new guard point, which gives users of the weapon another (hopefully viable) option besides evade gunlancing. Here is what’s new with the weapon.

  • The Wyrmstake Blast’s loading animation is now a guard point. Hunters who equip the Guard skill can also use Wyrmstake Blast after a guard.
  • Wyrmstake Blast loads faster.
  • Wyrmstake Blast does more damage.
  • The Wide Sweep move will no longer knock down players. Hallelujah!
  • If the Wyrmstake Blast misses, your equipped slinger ammo will drop.

Anyway, those are the key gameplay tweaks announced today via the Capcom TV interview. What do you think of the new changes? As always, make sure to check back here for more Monster Hunter coverage.

Jason Hidalgo covers business and technology for the Reno Gazette Journal, and also reviews video games as part of his Technobubble features. Follow him on Twitter @jasonhidalgo. Like this content? Support local journalism with an RGJ digital subscription.

Published 1:37 PM EDT Aug 8, 2019

It’s no secret that Monster Hunter World is a dense game whose systems are intricate and deep. The game does have an extensive tutorial, but even then players might not fully understand how everything works, or more importantly how specific items or skills can benefit the monster hunt.

One stat that many might be curious about is Affinity since it appears on every weapon and there are several skills that increase it. So what is Affinity in Monster Hunter World?

Affinity appears as a percentage under the weapon tab. For sharp weapons, the affinity stat will use be a positive percent but for lower level weapons made of blunt materials it is typically a negative percent.

How Affinity Impacts Weapon Damage

Some might think that Affinity is simply critical hit chance, but it is slightly more than that. That’s certainly a reductive way to describe it, but Affinity is more like the percent chance that a weapon strike will do a little extra damage. Most will see this in their critical hit damage, since focusing on monster weak points is key to the game anyway, but it actually has the chance to buff any weapon strike.

Depending on a player’s build in Monster Hunter World they may want to stack as many affinity boosting skills as possible. If, for example, the player is using a burst damage weapon, like the charge blade, long sword or hammer, then higher affinity will help ensure that short window of damage is as high as possible.

On the flip side, low or negative affinity will result in un-buffed damage numbers. By no means is this bad, but getting extra damage is typically going to be worth it.

While there are tons of different skills in Monster Hunter World, quite a few of them emphasize affinity – boosting the stat directly or in certain conditions. And now that players know what the stat does they can effectively maximize their build for damage.

Monster Hunter World is out now for PS4 and Xbox One. The PC version will release in the fall.

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