MHW

Lern monster behavior. Back in FU I'd just go in with fucking nothing and see how long I could last without running away or dying.
This helped me learn how to know when to dodge and when it was good to attack.
Ultimately if you know how a monster behaves, you'll know how to avoid everything they do, which is completely possible.
This is all optional but ?I think learning monsters is a good trait to pick up.

Secondly, and probably the more practical for a new player is to just get some good gear.
MH games have mostly relied on having a bigger number and better gear/skills. You will ALWAYS need a better weapon at the bare minimum.

step 1: make guild cross
step 2: make part breaker 3
step 3: make stun resistance 3

The absolute best advice I can give you, is if you ever get stuck on a monster, just spend like 5 minutes dodging and not even attempting to attack to learn the monster's tells and where you should (or shouldn't) be standing at any given time. Then when you think you know your openings start getting aggressive.

This works on literally every fight in MH and boss fights in most other games as well.

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thanks for the advice everyone. one more thing, is sword and board even a viable weapon? it seems the damage I do is pitiful but I know this game isn't called hit it till it dies for nothing. should I bother with traps and whatnot too?

thats not from world dipshit

Every weapon is viable. Sword and Shield is kind of like Lance and Dual Blades, you need to use your ease of defensive options (low attack commitment = easy dodging in SnS's case) to keep up an insane level of aggression.
SnS is also one of the weapons that benefits a lot from elemental damage because of its speed. If your weapon has elemental damage on it, it does the same amount of element damage on every swing so it benefits fast weapons more. The only problem then is having to juggle at least 3 sets (Lightning/Water/Ice are the most common weaknesses) to cover different monsters.

Sword and Shield is easy to pick up but has a high ceiling. It's niche is being able to use items on the fly, so when you get better at the game and have a better grasp with items, you can use it to it's fullest extent.

>Sliding down hills
>Not from World

>should I bother with traps and whatnot too
Absolutely yes. Items usage is just as important as gear. Use traps, use potions, make stronger potions, craft potions mid fight even if you run low, use mantles, use palico abilities, use powders that boost stats, have potions for status effects on hand, customize your hotbar and sort your box so you can optimize it all, grab important resources like godbugs when you see them, use the alchemist/apothecary whatever it's called and stock up on honey and herbs, use slinger pickups that drop from monsters and learn when to use each, use flash pods on anything that's flying and dung pods to keep other monsters away from the fight.

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traps are core
use everything the game gives you

OK, I guess I should spend some time just grinding items, there's a lot of stuff I can't craft yet

Pick the longsword and fire SOS pods. Your teammates will love you for the easy material farm.

The two most important things to utilize with SnS imo, utilize your slinger. Look for ammo that drops when breaking parts on the monster, look for ammo laying around (scatternuts mostly) Always bring flashpods with you, you can get a free stun by flashing a monster that's flying. And be on the lookout for environmental stuff you can shoot, and wedge beetles you can swing from. Which goes into the other part, SnS is exceptional at mounting. You can attack UP ledges to launch into the air and land mounting hits, as well as you can fucking launch yourself down ledges as well, and yeah remember to swing around on wedge beetles for escapes and mounting hits. The fact that you can use the slinger without sheathing is a big part of SnS imo, as well as other items, but mostly the slinger, make sure to mix it into your fight a bunch. Oh and do the shield bash combo on monsters heads when they go down, it may not be hammer amounts of KO damage, but you can still get a KO by shieldbashing the fuck out of a monsters head when its stunned (either from a mount or a flash) Which just leads to more damage (once you get one KO though just start focusing on getting a tail cut)

I was doing this pretty successfully until Deviljho. He's dangerous even just running around and not trying to attack him.

The trick with Deviljho is he's way more dangerous at midrange than he is up close. Stay under him and all he can really do is try to step on you or back up and dragonbreath.
Tremor Resist also gives you a lot more openings if you need it.

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