Monster Hunter Wilds’ new feature is nerfing your best weapons

A new combat feature in Wild Monster Hunter appears to have nerfed some of its biggest weapons. Scheduled for release in February 2025, Wild Monster Hunter is running an open beta test until November 4th. During this period, players can enjoy a brief demo of the game, witnessing the first moments of its story, exploring its first map and hunting its first three monsters. While it’s only an early, limited version of the game, there’s a surprising amount for players to experience, including the full arsenal of all 14 Monster Hunter types of weapons.

However, some players are logging in Wild Monster Hunter for the first time, only to discover that your favorite weapons have been nerfed. Some weapons have definitely been hit harder than others, but the changes are universal and not all will be popular. It is quite clear that they are a direct result of Wild Monster Hunter‘biggest new mechanic, called Focus, but whether its introduction was worth these changes is up for debate.

Monster Hunter Wilds changes the Insect Glaive

And not for the better

The worst victim of Wild Monster Hunter‘changes of weapons is the Insect Glaive, which has completely lost the ability to chain aerial combos. The Insect Glaive functions as a pair of twin blades on the ground, but can also be used as a pole vault to launch a hunter into the air. Once up there, they have access to a variety of different moves, including, when the Glaive is fed red extract, a spinning, spinning aerial somersault in which they orbit the Insect Glaive around its body, dealing constant damage. for anything nearby.

These hits do little damage, but it’s easy to land several at once. More importantly, in previous Monster Hunter In the games, players could chain together several of these aerial combos, remaining in the air for long periods of time. It took a bit of practice to master: to start the next combo, the last hit of the previous one had to land. Positioning and timing to maximize damage was difficult. But once players get the hang of it, they could use these combos to do a lot of damage with little risk to themselves. Plus, it was very satisfying when done right.

Certain monsters were particularly susceptible to this method of attack: in particular, hunters could weave themselves around the curves of a serpentine monster like the Mizutsune, landing blow after blow, leaving the monster no hope of retaliation. In some cases, Could even stop monsters from escaping when they were injured; the Insect Glaive would allow players to propel themselves forward, giving them a quick option to chase down fleeing monsters and potentially redraw aggro.

Unfortunately, the ability to chain these combos has been eliminated in Wild. Players can still breakdance around monsters, but after performing a single aerial combo, they will simply land on their feet.with no option to continue the combo. This eliminates its damage capacity and takes away much of what makes the Insect Glaive unique among Monster Hunter weapons.

Why the Glaive bug was nerfed

Focus mode would make insect Glaive very easy

Naturally, there’s a perfectly good reason for the Insect Glaive nerf, frustrating as it may be. Wild Monster Hunter introduces a new feature called Focus that makes turning on the Insect Glaive much easier; combined with chained air combos, this would make the weapon overpowered. Focus has a variety of different uses in Wildmost of them weapon specific. For the Insect Glaive, it offers players a special attack that allows them to fill all three extraction meters at once in a single move.

The Insect Glaive is paired with a companion called the Kinsect. This is a long-range living weapon with low damage attacks, but most importantly, it is capable of collecting “extracts” when fired at a monster. There are three different types of extract (red, orange and white), each with a different effect. The type of extract collected depends on the part of the monster it was collected from. For aerial combat purposes, red is most importantas it increases damage and effectively unlocks the multi-hit aerial combo that players need to use this strategy.

Before they can use aerial combos to their full potential, players often need to demonstrate good aim and precise timing to collect the red extract. Extract collection locations are not always clear, so when fighting a new type of monster this may also require some experimentation. However, this skill-based check of Insect Glaive’s power is no longer required in Wildas players can fill all three extraction meters with a single hit. This would make it very easy to deal damage with aerial combos, unbalancing the Insect Glaive and taking the challenge out of most fights.

Monster Hunter Wilds’ focus mode is bad news for some weapons

Emphasizing precision over propagation

Wild Monster Hunter‘The new Focus feature is cool, but does more harm than good to certain types of weapons. The purpose of Focus is to emphasize precision attacks on monsters’ weak points. This goes hand in hand with the new wound system. If the player repeatedly hits the same part of a monster, it will begin to glow red, signifying the opening of a new wound. This effectively becomes a new weak point; each subsequent blow to a wound is extra powerful, and enough consecutive blows”destroy” the wound, causing explosion damage.

This is, admittedly, an interesting feature at times. It’s great for ranged weapons that emphasize accuracy, and even melee weapons with larger hitboxes can easily inflict wounds simply by going into Focus mode. But This new emphasis on accuracy disincentivizes the use of weapons with greater damage distributionlike Insect Glaive, Switch Ax or Spread Ammo. As a result, these weapons lose their unique aspects and begin to blend in with similar weapon types. This is overall harmful to the Monster Hunter arsenal, whose greatest strength is the wide variety of play styles that its different weapons allow.

Wild is based Monster Hunter World (and to a lesser extent, Ascend) in countless ways, adding new mechanics like Focus and injuries that completely change the game. However, these new mechanics are not always constructive, as they remove much of what makes certain weapons unique. However, there is still time for these mechanics to be changed between the end of the beta and the release of the full game. Whether these changes were truly worth the sacrifice will only become clear when the full scope of combat is revealed after Wild Monster Hunter‘ release.