- With my confidence skyrocketing thanks to the fight with the Great Jaggi, I decided to visit the city in the desert, the spot where all big hunters meet: Loc Lac.
After a couple issues getting my airship ticket to there (if you get what I mean) that never happened again, I arrived. This city is HUGE! There’s the gate, there’s the market, there’s the workshop, there’s the tavern, and there’s the residential area, where you can stay. I was surprised and slightly disappointed to find out that there can only be up to four hunters on the same city, despite the airship agency showing thousands of people there. Four is also the maximum number of hunters the guild allows in the same quest… why, it’s because it’s unfair with the monsters? Pfft…
- Knowing a friend’s name, I try to search for her. I find someone with the same name, and try to talk to the person… and said person was really rude and I just don’t say she ignored me because when I asked if she was who I thought she was, she said “it is”
- Giving up on that person and moving to another place, I managed to find a group of nice people with about the same experience as me. We decided we’d hunt a Great Jaggi.
I found it weird that the monsters felt stronger, but then a member of the group said “that’s because they ARE stronger”. Hmm… city quests only take you to top tier versions of the same creatures? Interesting!
While the monsters are stronger, hunting the Great Jaggi with 3 extra blades was a breeze. Avoiding attacks is becoming a second nature by now.
- We didn’t waste time and, right after we returned, we picked another quest, but with a little twist: instead of killing the monster, we had to capture it alive. The victim is the Royal Ludroth.
You want a piece of me? Well guess what? My Great Sword wants a piece of you too!
And I thought the Great Jaggi was aggressive… the R.Ludroth doesn’t stand still! He’s fast, he’s strong, he can shoot projectiles that make catching your breath a pain, and his attacks are stronger and more varied. The fight is hard, but not impossible. After all, it’s 4 on 1, right? Yes I’m ignoring the smaller monsters, they’re not a big threat.
Anyway, the fight was intense. He’d often shoot those water balls and his rolling attack is hard to dodge. At one point, though, we weakened him so much he ran… to the water! *takes a deep breath* come on… you can do it… the lagiacrus will NOT appear… I have to do it. *jumps on water*
The underwater fight took less time than expected, as the R.Ludroth was quick to run back to land. He’s tired. It’s capture time! I pick my shock trap and start preparing it when… one of our members fell. Our fainting limit expired. Quest failed.
We decide not to give up and try again. One of the members (the one who fell last) left the group, but the rest wasn’t willing to leave that R.Ludroth escape that easily.
The fight was almost the same for most of the time, only much easier, now that I know his attack patterns and behavior. The problem here was the time spent underwater. He’s an amphibious creature. Hunters aren’t. This makes long underwater fights a tough challenge, as he can move faster, even when weakened.
At one point, I and another member of the group had to fall back to the base camp to heal, leaving just one person behind on his own.
Doesn't seem like a nice idea now...
After spending more time than we wanted underwater, we scare the R.Ludroth back to land. We won’t fail this time. I set the trap. He falls on it. The other hunter who has the tranquilizer bomb shoots it. And the beast was tamed.
Back to the tavern, bragging our success to each other (as if we weren’t all there), we register each other on our friend list. This way, we’ll always know if the other is around town!
- We all left town after that, but I returned right after. Seeing as nobody was around (the other hunters were out questing), I decided to go on my own grab some materials for my gear (nothing worth describing). When I return, I finally find a familiar face: the friend I was searching earlier was there, beating other people on arm wrestling contests. We form a group and go to the flooded forest in search for a Royal Ludroth.
Other than the fact that with stronger friends, battles become easier, nothing special happened until I committed too many mistakes in a row and fell. I apologize and rush back to the battle. On my way there, though, I’m forced to stop in a mix of awe and fear: a Rathalos is there, right in front of me, hunting ludroths for lunch. If you don’t know what a Rathalos is, let me clear this up: he’s even worse than a Lagiacrus. And he can fly.
Run in fear while you can
I have to walk silently past him… I’m almost there… OH CRAP HE SAW ME, HE’S ABOUT TO FLY IN MY DIRECTION! I run as fast as I can and, when I look around to see where I am, I find myself right in the middle of the battle against the R.Ludroth!
The quest was a success, and as for the Rathalos, I’ve never seen him again… I wish.
- Me and my friend spent the rest of the day questing together and, among other things, we went back to the forest to get me some materials to upgrade my sword. Once back, I run to the residential area to put on my storage box all the future gear, but before I’m able to scream for them to wait, the party leaves me behind.
Trying to find a better thing to do than stare at the sky, I pick a simple quest of getting deer horns to use in some medicinal treatment. Instead of doing what the quest asked me to do, I walked all over Moga Woods for more materials, and was about to focus on my objective when he shows up… the king of douches, the one and only…
Yep, i'm back.
I don’t have time for him, my friends already returned and they said they were waiting. Thankfully I had finished the side mission and managed to deliver a half-done quest. It’s not that the Great Jaggi is all that hard, but he would just require more time than I was willing to spend on him, so I decided to leave him behind.
- Another thing we did (and several times) was attempt to hunt a Barroth, a monster way out of my league, but I still accepted to go with them on all occasions.
The Barroth is a monster made of rock that is ridiculously fast and strong. He can charge in your direction with the head down to smash you away, use his heavy tail as a stone whip, or even throw giant boulders around him when he shakes his body. Not only that, but the spots where you can damage him are so narrow that rarely my Great Sword would hit.
Needless to say, we failed every single time.
- later that day, we went out to capture the Qurupeco, a giant bird that can emit the sounds other creatures make to call them for help. Most of the times I faced a Qurupeco, he’d just summon jaggis, which you should know by now, are as useful as a pie when trying to attack your enemy. But this time? Nooooooo… he had to bring a high tier monster to the party, and who better than the almighty Rathalos?
Seriously, are you stalking me or what?
The fight was a pain, but at some point the Rathalos just got bored and left. The Qurupeco is already weak, so I set the trap… and he run in the opposite direction. We have no choice but leave the trap behind. On our way looking for where the Qurupeco went, I find the Rathalos again, but manage to escape before he notices me.
Luckily my friend had an extra trap… from which the Qurupeco got out of. And once again, the lack of preparation resulted in failing on the mission. I thought the single trap the guild lends us would be enough, and my arrogance cost us the entire quest.
- And finally, the last thing I did on this great day of hunting was going after the Qurupeco again, but this time we weren’t there to capture, we were there to kill. And again, the damn creature decides to summon a boss monster: the Royal Ludroth. I should consider it a challenge, but my skills are on such a level now that he didn’t even hit me, and at some point he ran away without even giving me the chance to focus my efforts on him. At that moment I felt proud of how much I progressed in such a short time. And I wouldn’t know how much until the next day… but you’ll have to wait for tomorrow to find out why.
Anyway, the quest was obviously a success, and I quickly said goodbye to the group before going away. It was that or face consequences from a world that isn’t even the one we hunters live!
My final verdict? Loc Lac is THE place to go if you want to enjoy the experience of hunting with others, finding old friends and meeting new ones, and become stronger faster.
In Group, even defeating the Lagiacrus seems plausible... maybe not so much.
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