MHW dev talk: Lunastra tips and armor, auto-dodging and arch monsters | Technobubble

Teostra’s “bae” makes her long-rumored return to the series as Lunastra officially joins Monster Hunter World’s growing lineup. Has it really been a decade or so?

To gin up the female elder dragon’s inclusion into the game, Monster Hunter World’s developer trio of Kaname Fujioka, Ryozo Tsujimoto and Yuya Tokuda previewed the big May 30 update during a Japanese livestream on Capcom’s official YouTube channel.

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The developers talked about all sorts of topics, including some interesting Lunastra tips as well as new game features such as tougher arch-tempered monsters and a nifty new tool for auto-dodging attacks. Here are some key points I learned from the livestream.

Alpha female: As part of the dev hunt, the team highlighted the Lunastra Alpha armor set. Here are some of the stats in the specific set that was used:

Attack: 247 with Lunastra LBG

Defense: 351

Fire Defense: 15

Water Defense: 5

Thunder Defense: 5

Ice Defense: -15

Dragon Defense: -10

Here’s a list of the skills activated as well. Note that the player was using an Awakening Charm II (which grants Free Element/Ammo Up 2):

Wide Range, Level 4

Health Boost, Level 3 (Max)

Blast Attack, Level 3 (Max)

Tool Specialist, Level 3 (Max)

Peak performance, Level 2

Evade Extender, Level 2

Mind’s Eye/Ballistics, Level 2

Free Element/Ammo Up, Level 2 (from Awakening Charm II)

Set Bonus: Stamina Cap Up and Mind’s Eye/Ballistics

Decoration slots are pretty generous for an Alpha set. You basically get 4 Level 3 slots and 6 level 1 slots total. Here’s the breakdown per piece.

Head: Level 3 x1, Level 1 x1

Chest: Level 1 x2

Arms: Level 3 x1

Waist: Level 3 x1, Level 1 x1

Legs: Level 3 x1, Level 1 x1

Big blue: The Lunastra quest is a special mission that can be unlocked by talking to the "Swordmaster," also known as the Huntsman in the English version. This makes sense given the Huntsman’s history with Teostra. Tokuda says to talk to the Huntsman when he gets a blue exclamation point atop his head to unlock the quest, which I have now confirmed myself in the game. Unlike Kulve Taroth, the quest can be taken even when outside of the Gathering Hub and isn't a limited-time event.

Drink to your health: Lunastra’s flame remnants apparently heat up the environment even when you aren’t in a place that features magma. As such, one of the devs advised his team members to chug a Cold Drink during a hunt against the female elder dragon to counter her environmental effects.

Water it down: Lunastra loves to spread her blue flames all over the field to zone opposing hunters and make life more difficult in general. Using a water element weapon, however, will allow you to douse some of the flames, which one of the devs demonstrated by firing water bullets to extinguish them. However, this only works on smaller flames and not the bigger ones. That being said, it might still be a good idea to douse them as the flames can add up and essentially trap you if they spread too much and Lunastra decides to do her Supernova ground pound. Oh yeah, Kushala Daora can use Lunastra's blue flames to create a burning, blue tornado. Seriously. (This was not shown in the dev stream but I've seen it happen!)

Couple’s therapy: Unlike the seemingly dysfunctional relationship between Rathalos and Rathian, Lunastra and Teostra will cast aside their occasional lover’s quarrel to team up against unsuspecting hunters. This was demonstrated during the dev team’s hunt when both monsters joined forces to prepare for trouble and make it double by doing a double Supernova attack. During the attack, Lunastra will call Teostra, then do a quick aerial spin while the male elder dragon positions high above her. Teostra will then do an airborne Supernova while Lunastra does a ground pound Supernova. The result is one of the coolest monster attacks I’ve ever seen in the series. It’s hot stuff, literally and figuratively.

Two-timing: If you thought Kulve Taroth’s Magma breath was bad, Lunastra’s sea of flames is arguably even worse. During the last phases of the dev’s hunt, Lunastra does her ground pound Supernova (at the 37:58 minute mark), which fills the ground with a sea of pulsating blue flame that gradually ticks the health of three team members below the halfway mark. With her feet still firmly planted on the ground, she will then follow up that attack with a land-based Supernova that basically wipes out the team. All in all, I love how they decided not to make Lunastra a weaker Teostra and make her a unique monster in her own right. In fact, after fighting her myself following a hunt where I easily took down a large Gold Crown Teostra, I can say that she's actually harder than her male counterpart.

Flying blind: This was not shown in the livestream but I'm adding it because it's useful information. Basically, I tried flash bombing her in the air during my first encounter and while this blinds her, it does not send her crashing down like Teostra. She actually stays airborne and literally flies blind.

Weapons with abilities: Traditionally, skills and abilities in Monster Hunter can be found in armor, gems and charms or talismans. Lunastra weapons, though, will apparently have the ability to come with, well, abilities — a first in the series, Fujioka said. This is apparently possible because Lunastra materials can resonate with mats from other monsters.

Using a Bazelgeuse gem, for example, will unlock the “Guts” skill on a Lunastra weapon. Other effects can be acquired by interacting with Nergigante and Xeno’jiiva mats as well. More specifically, there will be three variants for each Lunastra weapon. The first Lunastra LBG shown had Razor Sharp/Spare Shot. Yes, that also happens to be Xeno’Jiiva’s 3-piece set bonus via Xeno’Jiiva Divinity so it only makes sense that this comes from using Lunastra’s resonance with Xeno’Jiiva. The second LBG had Hasten Recovery, which, once again is the 3-piece set bonus from Nergigante via Nergigante Hunger. The third, meanwhile, has the same Guts set bonus seen in Bazelgeuse’s 3-piece perk, Bazelgeuse Protection.

If I understood it correctly, Fujioka mentioned during the livestream that Lunastra weapons can be upgraded once but will require some sort of investigation tickets. Acquiring these tickets, though, will require players to be at a relatively high Hunter Rank (likely because you have to fight the new arch-tempered monsters for it).

Auto-dodging: In a move that might be controversial with some, the livestream also touched upon the new Temporal Mantle, which will allow players to auto-dodge an attack. A member of the dev team demonstrated this during Lunastra hunt by walking up to the monster with the mantle equipped and auto-dodging attacks in the process (like every mantle, it eventually runs out after a while or following multiple hits). While purists might decry this, the tool will certainly be helpful for newcomers or folks struggling with certain monsters. Speaking of monsters that folks might struggle with.

Temper, temper: It won’t happen as part of the Lunastra update but eventually, Monster Hunter World will get arch-tempered monsters. These are even stronger than tempered monsters and are denoted by a metallic sheen. The first arch-tempered monster will be a Kirin, which will be available as part of an event quest from June 8 to June 21 (UTC time). This will be followed by an arch-tempered Vaal Hazak event from June 22 to July 5 (UTC time).

Gamma charge: Monster Hunter World will be introducing a third type of armor after Alpha and Beta sets, which will be known as Gamma armor. The team didn’t expound too much on it but says it will be quite powerful in order to make hunting Arch-Tempered monsters worthwhile and give players even more build options for their sets. Just looking at the Alpha version of the armor, for example, it has a generous amount of slots for Alpha armor so you can only imagine what the offerings will be for Beta and Gamma.

Here are a few other quick updates shared by the team:

You can now acquire tempered monster investigations by hunting tempered monsters or breaking tempered monster parts. This makes it easier to unlock them compared to having to just rely on gathering footprints.

Armor colors and layered armor settings can now be changed at every equipment box in Astera (except for the training area) and the Research Base.

The camera will no longer forcefully switch to the Scoutfly guidance point at the beginning of a mission when you arrive in camp.

The “Monster Pd.D” event will no longer require getting the requisite research levels for DevilJho and other monsters introduced as part of free updates released after the base game.

Bug fixes include removal of an infinite buff after a foresight slash, removal of the SAED to AED combo bug and removal of the Wyvernheart aiming reticle bug. Bugs were also fixed that glitched the Kulve Taroth hunt in the first phase and the final phase.

Those are the key points I have so far. I’ll make sure to go through the livestream again as well as the updates on the official sites to see if I need to correct anything or add more info to this article later on. In the meantime, happy hunting!

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