In-Depth Analysis: Monster Hunter Returns

January 29, 2018


Introduction
Monster Hunter is finally back in NA (after, for some reason, skipping a cycle) and there's some interesting stuff this time around. While we don't want to rain on your parade too much, the machine's hefty 10-stone cost combined with our recurring theme that interesting doesn't always mean good sadly puts this machine's value a bit lower than we'd like. It's still not bad at all, and nearly all the cards have some kind of usage case, but for non-whales it's not reliably good enough to be worth rolling to any considerable extent. (Most collabs, including this one, pale in comparison to something like DBDC.)

This isn't to say the best cards aren't good, of course. Diablos, though beginning to be overshadowed by new leaders and new mechanics, is still an absolute powerhouse. Amatsu can probably be argued to be the best sub in the game. The new Nergigante is stellar in pretty much all departments. In a time where the "best" cards are susceptible to change more rapidly than ever, the glitter isn't worth the risk and stone input for most players. On the other hand you should be very pleased if you do happen to roll one of the excellent prize cards.

Every single card in this machine has received an equip evolution, and we'll be discussing those in the cards' respective sections below. Remember that equip evolutions are not reversible. We will talk about which equips are and aren't worth making, but as a rule of thumb, since they are irreversible, you should generally not proceed with an equip evolution until you know you'll have some use for it.

Finally, and honestly more exciting than the REM cards, are the Male and Female Hunters. Each player gets both a Male Hunter and a Female Hunter for free, with additional Hunters being buyable for 200k MP. Though they are technically farmable, we'll include a review of each Hunter as well, since 200k MP can be a steep investment for many players and there is thus a corresponding opportunity cost.

Card Ratings and Analyses
You can click on a rarity or a card's name to jump to the corresponding section of analysis. The arrow ↑ at the bottom right of each analysis will take you back up here. Please see this page for an explanation of the rating criteria.

Roll data is provided by GungHo.

Rarity
Card
Roll %
Sub
Lead
Assist
Overall
5
Tigrex
7.92%
C+
C+
A-*
B-
Gammoth
B-
B-
C
B-
Barioth
B-
C+
A+
A
Rathian
C
D
A-
B+
Astalos
C+
C
B
B-
Nargacuga
C+
B-
C+
C+
Paolumu
B+*
C+
B
B
6
Rathalos
5.22%
B+
D+
C
B
Glavenus
A-
B-
B-
A-
Mizutsune
B+
C
B-
B+
Legiana
B
C
A*
B+
Brachydios
A
B
S-*
A
Kirin
B-
B
B+
B
Valphalk
B-
B
B+
B
7
Amatsu
2.00%
S
B+
A+
S
Diablos
B
S-
C+
S-
Zinogre
A
B+
A-
A-
Nergigante
S-
A-
S-
S-

Hunter
Armor
Sub
Lead
Assist
Overall
Male
Rathalos
B-
C
A-*
A-
Mizutsune
B-
S-
C
S-
Diablos
C+
C+
B-
C+
Brachydios
B-
C-
C+
C+
Nergigante
A*
B-*
A*
A*
Female
Glavenus
A*
S-*
B
S-*
Legiana
C+
B-
B+
B
Barioth
A-
B
B-
A-
Kirin
C+
C
C+
C+
Nargacuga
C+
B
B
B
   * denotes substantial or unique (or both) farming usage.

Tigrex [ Sub: C+ | Lead: C+ | Assist: A* | Overall: B- ]
HP: 6035 | ATK: 2165 | RCV: 99 | WT: 1069 | Dragon/Physical
LS: 1.5x all parameters for Dragon Type, but no skyfall combos; 3x ATK for clearing each Fire or Wood cross. [2.25/1640.25/2.25]
AS: Changes all Orbs to Fire, Wood & Jammers [CD: 7]

Overview. Tigrex is lackluster with some niche uses. His equip form is often preferable if your fire box already looks fairly good. Probably one of the most distinctly average rolls in Monster Hunter, all things considered, as the equip is not useful for every player.

Sub. Tigrex packs massive HP and Attack but lacks noticeably in RCV, a similar trend to many of the other Monster Hunter cards. Having two Time Extends is great for a red card and he can hypothetically be used on something like Enra, and this is a nice option for newer players specifically. For more experienced and developed players, there are simply better options most of the time, even considering the nice stat total. Note that Tigrex lacks SBR and that Dragon/Physical is an absolutely terrible typing for killer latenting. Combined with a lack of individual offensive awakenings, it is difficult to get the most out of Tigrex even given his good base Attack.

However, if you play Denebola, Tigrex is actually a fantastic option as either a sub or inherit, for fairly straightforward reasons. This is the one and only place where he can stand out.

Lead. Tigrex's immediate comparison as a lead is to Acala, having both the same multiplier and same multiplier scaling. Though the card itself fits the leader skill fairly well -- he has massive HP, decent passive damage from awakenings, and a generous amount of Time Extend -- he's still worse than Acala on the whole simply by virtue of the typing restriction. Acala is already not a phenomenal lead today, being fairly orb hungry and hard for most players to make the most of.

Due to his typing restriction as well, it is also harder Tigrex teams to reach a reasonable amount of RCV, compared to Acala (who has no limitation in options whatsoever). Tigrex can also struggle to find an on-color FUA option, since none of these cards are readily accessible at all. Finally, his teambuilding is limited additionally by the need for a double SBR option.

On the whole, we can't truly recommend Tigrex (nor really Acala either) as a lead, though he can be pretty fun and have some amount of late-game potential given enough skill and a sufficiently good box. However, if you are looking for red cross play that is both fun and powerful, we advise you to look past both Tigrex and Acala to Diara instead (released just today!).

Assist. If you don't have other options for tricolors, this is actually quite usable as the cooldown is exceptionally low for a three-"color" board due to jammer generation. If you do have something like Urd though, his value goes way down. Again, the only place where this inherit is unambiguously one of the best options is on a Denebola team.

Equip. Tigrex himself might be average at best, but this equip is quite powerful, especially for farmers. Offering even more Attack than Samurai Zaerog's equip, the equip evolution is Tigrex's attempt at redeeming himself, and he does admittedly do a fairly good job. Farmers everywhere will be happy about the vastly expanded nuke potential of their farmable buttons, leading in particular to increased reliability in farming rogue dungeons. Because 300 Attack is actually quite substantial (it is more than a 10% bonus for almost all hypermaxed cards), the equip can also be used as a way to add damage to a card that's just a little bit off from where it needs to be.

Is this great and handy to have around? Sure. Is this necessary, even for farmers? Maybe not. Tigrex's role is indeed extraordinary for nukes such as Kagato, Kefka, Zeromus, Anji, and Noah, but in most cases Samurai Zaerog already supplies sufficient Attack and is farmable. Situations that absolutely require Tigrex equip are fairly few, and include reliably nuking the Super Kings with Anji in Gainaut, using the equip to cover for a potential bad level-up. So, even though the equip has some solid uses, most players should not be pouring stones into an expensive REM just to hunt for it.

When assisting for awakenings alone, it is highly recommended to leave the assist unskilled so you do not, say, accidentally make a board with jammers when you need to be nuking instead. Occasionally, the low base cooldown can mess you up -- for instance, Anji (Tigrex) can be used to destroy the Super King floor of Volsung Desceded and Tigrex comes up in 24 turns, but Noah Dragon, a preferred option for dealing with this rogue's final floor, needs 25 to charge. Even though Noah Dragon's active is not needed at the same time as Anji's, it can still be tricky to find the correct balance of Skill Boost in a situation like this. Be careful to not accidentally screw you over.

Gammoth [ Sub: B- | Lead: B- | Assist: C | Overall: B- ]
HP: 7058 | ATK: 1557 | RCV: 100 | WT: 1050 | Physical/Attacker
LS: 2x HP & ATK for Water Att.; 4.5x ATK when Water, Wood & Dark attack at once. [4/81/1]
AS: Creates 3 Water, Wood & Dark Orbs each at random; delays enemies' action by 1 turn. [CD: 9]

Overview. Nice HP stat and quite average in everything else. There's not too much to say about Gammoth, as he is a pretty straightforward card.

Sub. The main reason to be using Gammoth is his incredible base HP. The whole package is quite desirable on something like Meridionalis, who, though slightly dated for clearing content, remains a powerful and capable leader nonetheless. His awakenings work well for water row teams, though are extremely minimalistic otherwise. The base active is fairly average but also not on an extremely long cooldown and is practical to inherit over.

Outside of water row teams he is still usable due to titanic HP, but diminishes severely in value as his awakenings and comparative lack of firepower can become quite limiting.

Lead. 4x HP can literally be the difference between absolute garbage and decently usable, and in this case it is! The immense tankiness afforded by both the multiplier and by Gammoth's monstrous HP makes the lead actually fairly playable. It's a shame that three-color activation is unreliable and annoying -- made even worse by the fact that Gammoth uses rows -- but at least you can stall reasonably well with his sheer tankiness. You won't be able to clear everything with him, since three-color activation like this can only get you so far and he has a severe RCV problem that must somehow be accounted for (Mel is, as always, a good option), but he's not awful for what he is. Capable through Arena 3 with some difficulty.

Assist. This is largely terrible. Glavenus Hunter is a farmable and superior delay assist; Revo Orochi is a much better delay and gives nearly as much HP for an on-color assist. Some niche situations might arise where you would want Gammoth's unique three-color orb spawning instead of something like Karin, who simply changes the board to those colors; on the whole, though, this active just isn't that good most of the time.

Equip. Two HP awakenings is actually not bad and a hypermaxed Gammoth equip will add a hefty 1804 HP for an on-color assist. The value of this decreases when you consider the opportunity cost of having Gammoth's fairly bad active equipped. Proper teambuilding, including resist latents, can also get around the need for equip HP. This isn't to say the equip's effect is bad, since it isn't. Decent things, though, are still capable of not being worthwhile, especially when the lackluster active itself is considered.

One exception to this would be in a dungeon like 3P UDR, where the inherit will never, ever come up and you'd want to squeeze as much out of your team as you can possibly get. Lots of bonus points to the equip in this context. Another exception goes to Anubis other and skill-based leads, who can also make the most use out of this equip on their favorite sub, Tardis, for what essentially amounts to 1000 HP for free.

Barioth [ Sub: B- | Lead: C+ | Assist: A+ | Overall: A ]
HP: 4877 | ATK: 1807 | RCV: 602 | WT: 1049 | Dragon/Balance
LS: 1.5x HP, 3x ATK for Water Att.; 2.5x ATK when Water & Light attack at once. [2.25/56.25/1]
AS: Changes all Orbs to Water, Light & Heal Orbs; delays enemies' action by 2 turns. [CD: 14]

Overview. Water/Light/Heart tricolors are still quite rare, but massively powerful due to the strength of light-based Blue Hunter teams. The introduction of this active is quite a godsend, even if it comes on an otherwise average and simple card. Don't misinterpret this simplicity, though -- simple doesn't always mean bad and this is one hell of an active skill.

Sub. As has been discussed in some earlier reviews, there really isn't a place for water TPAs today. The combination of water TPAs and Balance typing still make Barioth capable of outputting some very respectable damage, but this will only rarely be your preferred option. The active is absolutely fantastic, of course, but it's just as fantastic if inherited on something more benefical to the team. At least the stats are great.

Lead. On paper, this is not a bad lead. An okay multiplier, adequate tankiness and reasonably flexible subpool make Barioth capable of tackling a good chunk of content. The problem is that the subs that would make Barioth truly capable of clearing difficult content, such as Tachibana and Yuna, are more powerful leads overall. This leads to a lack of proper use cases and ultimately limits the reasons you might conceivably lead Barioth. At the end of the day, it ends up unimpressive and unremarkable.

Assist. This is where Barioth excels. The combination of effects is beyond fantastic and easily good enough for the game's very hardest content. Barioth's active provides massive utility rolled into one package. A tricolor board with Hearts in very relevant and somewhat unique colors enables both healing and FUA for some very strong team archetypes. The delay is also quite handy in content of all difficulties, all the way up to Alt. Arena. Though simple, the active is absolutely fantastic with a huge variety of uses as long as you're fielding a team with the relevant colors.

The active is quite comparable to Nene, both Awoken and base, in the board it provides. Awoken Nene provides utility of a different sort. Both bind clear and awoken bind clear are great secondary effects on a powerful board changer, even if they are not as generally useful or flexible as a delay. Unawoken Nene is much more offensive, and trades any sort of utility for two combos' worth of extra damage. In our view, Barioth still ends up on top as the utility from delay is generally superior to either of Nene's two effects. All three cards have situations in which they are preferred over the others, though.

Equip. Since almost all of Barioth's best applications are as an inherit, most players with reasonably developed boxes have little to lose by making the equip form. The awakenings are straightforward but powerful; adding 400 RCV to any card has very straightforward utility. Frankly, Barioth's skill is so, so good in comparison to the base card that it's frequently worth making the equip even if you only have one.

(If you want to mess around with ridiculously unparalleled healing, consider inheriting Barioth onto Mel, who will then contribute 23,000 to your team's RCV for matching four enhanced Hearts.)

Rathian [ Sub: C | Lead: D | Assist: A- | Overall: B+ ]
HP: 4426 | ATK: 2671 | RCV: 278 | WT: 1069 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 25% reduced damage, 4x ATK when 3+ Wood combos; 2.5x ATK for clearing each Wood cross. [1/625/1, 43.75% shield]
AS: All enemies are poisoned for 50x ATK; delays enemies' action by 2 turns. [CD: 12]

Overview. What a strange and distinctly... mediocre monster. The equip form is somewhat redeeming with its poison resists, but everything else is just so questionable.

Sub. Minimalistic and no offensive awakenings. The stat lineup is all right and the utility awakenings are there somewhat, but we simply can't think of a situation in which you'd actively seek to put this monster on your team.

Lead. Rathian would be fine if it weren't the most orb hungry piece of trash in the nearly the entire game. That is to say, this leader skill is horrible. Five wood orbs gets you an abysmal 6.25x cross with dual Rathian leads, which is just about as bad as it gets. To achieve even a semi-respectable multiplier of 100x you need eleven wood orbs at minimum, and maximum activation needs thirteen. This card is like an impossibly bad version of Neptune Dragon in terms of sheer orb hunger. Never lead this.

Assist. So, usually with a delay, the idea is to kill a floor after some set number of turns. On the other hand, if you use a poison, the idea is to break the enemy's resolve or defense in just one turn. If you do both, you get... really no additional reward whatsoever. For sone reason, GungHo decided to take both these effects to the next level and combine them, despite this obvious redundancy, creating a very overfilled garbage skill that is typically extraordinarily overkill. Most things that you would be poisoning are already vulnerable to delay (and vice versa); furthermore, status shield blocks both effects, so it's not like you're getting some advanced synergy or additional usage with this. The icing on the cake is that you pay 12 turns for this crap. The effects aren't at all bad objectively and individually, but combining them like this is a bit incomprehensible. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You might be more interested in the effects individually rather than in the same package. As far as delay goes, you should be making Glavenus Hunter anyways, who has a slightly shorter cooldown and the same delay, but for what it's worth will at least typically do more damage than a 50x poison (shocking, we know) and is a ridiculously more useful overall. There are more efficient delays out there, of course, but Glavenus Hunter is readily accessible for nearly every player and serves as a useful point of comparison. If you want an inheritable poison, just make a Jormungandr. The one place this active might be the best is inheriting onto a card with 1 Attack (such as a Moogle below level 10) to let you bring down Dark Metatron TAMADRA in one turn, bypassing its extremely high defense and 50 damage void. Even this isn't irreplaceable, though.

Equip. As bizarre as the active is, three poison resists on an equip is unprecedented (Sasuke equip has two) and notably can yield 100% poison resist extremely easily by inheriting on a double poison resist card (Revo Bastet comes to mind). This is surprisingly nice in a surprisingly good number of dungeons, including Arena 3 (no-risk Grisar, no active usage on Beelzebub, very easy stalling on Zeus Dragon if you fail to kill him immediately, etc.), recent challenge dungeons, and more. Three poison resists is also great for both dealing with spawns such as Serket, Hermé, Sevenzard, and other spawns that function by spamming poisons. These functions aren't in massive demand, but actually do end up being surprisingly and substantially good; poison resistance is probably the most underrated awakening in the game.. If you end up finding yourself in need of this equip, there's no significant downside to making it. It's not as if the base Rathian is especially great.

Even though the active is indeed weird, it is by no means useless, as delays are useful even through very high-end content, so you don't have to feel too bad when it comes up in the middle of your run. There's nothing wrong with delaying (or are you poisoning...?) Hino Kagutsuchi if you don't happen to have enough hearts to FUA him.

Astalos [ Sub: C+ | Lead: C | Assist: B | Overall: B- ]
HP: 4504 | ATK: 2699 | RCV: 180 | WT: 1050 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 2x ATK when 2 Light combos, 7x when 4+ combos; Reduce damage from Light & Dark Att. enemies by 50%. [1/49/1, 75% Light/Dark resist]
AS: Delays enemies' action by 2 turns; Light Orbs more likely to appear by 15% for 2 turns. [CD: 10]

Overview. Astalos was once a unique card for being one of the highest plausible Attack inherits in the game, but that role is now outclassed by things such as Samurai Zaerog equip or the Tigrex equip discussed above. His main purpose now is in his unique active, as he doesn't have much of an identity outside of it and is lackluster otherewise.

Sub. Some cards can have TPAs and still be quite viable despite TPAs being a fairly outdated and outclassed damage awakening. Astalos is just not one of them. Despite his massive Attack and decent typing giving him respectable damage potential, these awakenings just don't cut it most of the time and there aren't many teams that he's a good fit for. Even something like SBR would improve the overall picture considerably, but sadly GungHo was not merciful to him.

Lead. This would be decent if it didn't require 12 light orbs for a rather disappointing payout. The resist also typically isn't strong enough to make the extreme orb hunger worthwhile. Probably don't lead with Astalos.

Assist. A 2-turn delay with reasonably short cooldown and, unlike Rathian, has a surprisingly helpful secondary effect. Enemy skyfall effects have a nasty tendency to ruin your run by filling your board with unwanted garbage, and Astalos' active is a nice way to clear enemy skyfalls while also bringing something useful to the team. This is most commonly relevant in Arena 3, where Osiris, Vishnu, and Hera-Ur all have 99-turn skyfall modifiers that may not be beneficial to your team at all. Astalos allows you to erase these detrimental skyfalls while gaining breathing room and extra utility on the later floors of the dungeon; delaying Zaerog so he doesn't absorb again or Divine Queen Hera so you can stall and set up a board for the Radar Dragons can significantly improve the consistency of your clears. Skyfall modifiers might seem like a small thing, but they are actually impactful to the extent that irinya typically refuses to solo Arena 3 without a way to clear enemy skyfalls. Astalos' active isn't necessarily good enough in general in the hardest of dungeons, but certainly has its uses.

We often suggest the farmable and fantastic Glavenus Hunter as an alternative option for these 2-turn delays, but Astalos actually has a better cooldown than Glavenus Hunter and so is for once a slightly better choice if the skyfall buff won't negatively impact your team.

Equip. We're not sure what these awakenings were supposed to accomplish. On the one hand, they are admittedly convenient for Arena 3 teams that rely on killers for damage and thus might have trouble bursting through some of the high-defense floors. On the other hand, these teams were still doing Arena 3 reliably before the inception of this equip, and will continue to do so without it. Is GungHo suddenly going to release a new diversity of strong enhance materials with huge HP? We don't see any truly noteworthy value in these killers outside of convenience and perhaps a marginal reliability increase for a handful of leads.

To be totally fair, the killers definitely aren't useless, and if you're going to inherit Astalos you might as well make this equip anyways because the base card is so mediocre.

Nargacuga [ Sub: C+ | Lead: B- | Assist: C+ | Overall: C+ ]
HP: 4141 | ATK: 2572 | RCV: 427 | WT: 1070 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 6x ATK when 6+ combos, but time to move Orbs is fixed to 4 secs; 2.5x ATK & RCV for Dragon Type. [1/225/6.25]
AS: Other allies' skills charge by 1 turn; changes 2nd left column to Dark Orbs [CD: 7]

Overview. Narga's a strange card, with some neat-ish awakenings and a fun leader skill. He definitely lacks broad applicability, but is at least moderately unique while doing so.

Sub. Just your average Monster Hunter five-star. Average awakenings, average typing, average (for this collab) stat distribution. Blind resist is sorta neat but like the other average five-stars, there aren't many places where you'd actively seek to use this on your team. Narga does have Guard Break, which can provide a way for players without other options to clear dungeons with high-defense spawns, such as rogues. Typically, though, the lack of offensive presence means that unless you're specifically looking for something that Narga offers, he is easily passed up for stronger options.

Lead. If a player is looking for an interesting comboing challenge, this is a pretty good option. Pairing with the similarly inclined Valphalk yields a 2/300/2.5 multiplier, which is good enough to clear a huge chunk of content and made much more challenging than usual due to the 4 seconds restriction. The multiplier is certainly impressive, but even the most amazing of players sadly cannot guarantee five-color boards whenever they need them.

If this sort of challenge is up your alley, we wholeheartedly encourage you to use Narga (and Valphalk), but we hesitate to recommend this as any kind of serious lead for serious clears.

Assist. Typically outclassed by Diadem and pretty much about as good as Kakkab. That is to say, this active isn't that helpful. The only thing that can really be said for it is that it's easy to make a cross with the second column converted instead of the first, but all cross teams want way more impactful actives than this.

Equip. Three blind resist is neat but definitely more of a luxury than anything else. There is some niche here in using this equip in conjunction with some other blind resists and Azazel for a huge damage enhance, but this isn't a very generally applicable use case. There aren't too many compelling reasons to actively want to make this.

Paolumu [ Sub: B* | Lead: C+ | Assist: B+ | Overall: B ]
HP: 4158 | ATK: 1858 | RCV: 787 | WT: 1049 | Dragon/Balance
LS: 3x ATK for Dragon Type; extends time to move Orbs by 2 secs; 2.5x ATK for clearing each Dark or Water cross. [1/2197.27/1]
AS: Changes all Orbs to Water, Dark & Heal Orbs; 1.5x time to move Orbs for 2 turns [CD: 10]

Overview. A Balance card with 787 RCV -- what an age we live in.

On a more serious note, this is the first card to hold two Healer Killers, which is quite unique and already helps set it apart. It's a bit of a shame that the rest of the awakenings aren't quite as solid. Three Time Extends is nice, but having no Skill Boosts can really hamstring its potential applications. (No. 6 has the same problem, but a third killer can really make up for a lot.) Aside from this, he isn't a very complicated card: use him if you want to smash Healers, probably don't use him if that's not your cup of tea.

Sub. Two Healer Killers are quite nice, but as mentioned above, the other awakenings don't really stack up. Many Healer spawns, such as Light Kali and Kaguya-Hime, have more conveniently targetable secondary typings (the two aforementioned are both God type), which also limits Paolumu's potential usage. Still, much of the time, Paolumu remains a viable option for tackling these spawns and definitely opens the door to some farming builds, both now and for the future.

Lead. Reasonably good for early game due to the 9x unconditional and for learning how to cross due to having three different sources of movetime (LS, AS, awakenings). Suffers in content above Arena 1-2 due to the lack of tank multipliers and a somewhat disappointing subpool restriction.

Assist. The other cards with this particular board are Ryune, Volsung Ney, and Halloween Nene. Paolumu is by far the easiest of them to obtain, even though time extension isn't quite as nice as any of the others' secondary effects. A solid but not exceptional skill that gets a bonus point due to its very nice synergy with dark-focused Blue Hunter teams.

Equip. Jammer resist is situationally helpful in cheesing some content, particularly dungeons with Hera-Beorc and her jammer minigame. It's certainly not as generally helpful as poison resist, but can come in handy once in a while. We do not recommend you make this equip unless you have a specific purpose in mind, however, as you will lose any potential uses from the double Healer Killer base card. Additionally, jammer resist can screw you over in Arena 3: if you hit Ilsix below his resolve threshold and resist his jammers, he will then nuke you again for a substantial damage total.

Rathalos [ Sub: B+ | Lead: D | Assist: C | Overall: B ]
HP: 4504 | ATK: 2808 | RCV: 263 | WT: 1099 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 2.5x ATK, 25% reduced damage when 3+ Fire combos; 5x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced. [1/156.25/1, 43.75% shield]
AS: Creates 6 Fire Orbs at random; enhances Fire Orbs. [CD: 7]

Overview. Rathalos is decent and usable, but not especially standout in any category. He packs an impressive array of stats and awakenings, but doesn't excel at anything in particular.

Sub. Despite only having one 7c awakening, the rest of Rathalos' lineup is quite good, packing all the essentials, some nice OE and TE, including one delicious Team HP awakening. His damage still pales in comparison to the best of the best, and his active really leaves something to be desired, but a sky-high Attack stat, reasonable damaging awakenings, and a good enough selection of killers all come together to make Rathalos usable enough.

It's a shame that there aren't too many places to actually use him, though, due to NA's shortage of decent fire leads. Enra is a natural choice for a leader and greatly benefits from everything Rathalos has to offer, even if he is strictly inferior to Kyo Kusanagi. Rathalos is also usable on a team like Christmas Kali, though his role here is more of a generic stat stick, inherit base, and damage contributor, though he doesn't cover colors and isn't anything truly special. Where are our endgame fire leads, GungHo? Where's our Awoken Kinnikuman?

Lead. He's so orb hungry and suffers a similar problem to Rathian in needing a huge number of orbs to get anything done. It's like if Krishna's leader skill had absolutely no scaling -- definitely not good. Requiring 11 orbs constantly to attain a respectable multiplier is not a viable playstyle, especially for what is functionally a glass cannon. You should not be seeking to lead with this.

Assist. This is not an objectively bad active, but is too low impact to be worth assisting most of the time. It's additionally usable as an enhance option for farming teams, but is far from unique in that regard.

Equip. Unless you are somehow in desperate need of fire OE, this isn't really worth making as Rathalos is actually a respectable sub. Much of the time, the need for this active could be replaced by something farmable with less opportunity cost, such as Gigas equip, and is very niche overall.

Glavenus [ Sub: A- | Lead: B- | Assist: B- | Overall: A- ]
HP: 5397 | ATK: 2641 | RCV: 336 | WT: 1179 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 2x ATK & RCV for Dragon & Attacker Type; 3x ATK for clearing each Fire or Dark Orbs in a cross formation (data in 6x5 board). [1/2916/4]
AS: 2x ATK for Dragon & Attacker Type for 1 turn; changes 2nd right column to Fire Orbs. [CD: 9]

Overview. Glavenus was one of the first FUA cards introduced with FUA and was considered an absolute powerhouse back then. He is not quite as good today, since other fire FUA cards have somewhat overshadowed him in terms of damage potential, but still should not be discounted or written off -- especially since the ugprades are even harder to get than he is. He's still something that most players should be delighted to roll.

Sub. A real monster of a... well, monster. Three Time Extend with FUA is a stellar combination, and the stat distribution does not disappoint either. Though he will rarely be the best choice these days, Glavenus is more than usable anywhere a red FUA card is desired, and trades the firepower of something like Red Cotton for a better stat distribution overall. The three Time Extends make him a great FUA option on Enra in particular, who suffers from a lack of Time Extends both as a leader and as a color.

Glavenus also makes for a nice FUA option on farming teams, in the situation that Pixel Echidna's leader skill nuke is not strong enough to break a resolve spawn's defense. He is on type for Glavenus Hunter teams and brings two Skill Boosts instead of one, making him a superior option to Urd and Red Cotton in farming contexts.

Glavenus has incredible tankiness, but a relative lack of offense and quite poor recovery. He does not receive a higher rating because he is overshadowed by both Awoken Hestia, who has Heart OE, unbindability, a nice base active, and God typing, and Kyo Kusanagi, who is a beast of a card that deals unbelievable damage (while having similarly atrocious recovery). This doesn't make Glavenus bad at all, though; he's still a card that most players should be delighted to get.

Lead. An RCV multiplier is actually extremely welcome here and elevates Glavenus above some of the other relatively terrible cross leads in MH, but he doesn't have the subpool flexibility, tankiness, or orb efficiency to truly shine. It's viable to use Xiahou Dun as a 7x6 swap option if you don't mind ending up with one off-type sub, but mitigated orb hunger doesn't really solve the tankiness issue. The upcoming Dantalion split, though again off-type, is another potential pairing and helps to resolve the tankiness issue, especially if used as a 7x6 swap. At the end of the day, Glavenus is great lead to use for fun and is adequately good to boot, though neither of us would take him into any truly hard content.

Assist. Potentially a good assist for farming with something like Zeus Verse: swiping a column of five orbs is reasonably unlikely to cause a skyfall to occur and, very crucially, Tsubaki benefits from the bonus damage for Dragons. This enables a team to wipe a floor that might otherwise have simply needed more than five orbs to clear, either via an entirely different and possibly unavailable active, or through swiping more orbs, which increases the chances of unwanted skyfalls. This is a fairly niche usage though; most of the time, Glavenus' active is not high impact enough to be worth inheriting in a non-farming scenario.

Equip. This is really incomprehensible and typically not a fantastic of a reasonably fantastic sub. Many players have access to the farmable King of Fighters '98 Cartridge for an Enhance Killer assist if the need for one somehow arises. Unless you want to play some strange (though admittedly funny) 820.125x killer meme like this, which can break Extreme King Metal Dragon's defense with a single dark combo even without a leader skill, you really don't need this kind of Enhance Killing. Glavenus equip also has the uncommon "restriction resist" awakening, which prevents abilities such Azazel's preemptive or parts of Khepri's skill set from sealing off portions of your board. While this is a nice luxury, since it is the first NA introduction of the awakening and is generally only otherwise found on Super Awoken cards, we're not convinced it justifies not having access to Glavenus himself.

Mizutsune [ Sub: B+ | Lead: C+ | Assist: B- | Overall: B+ ]
HP: 3598 | ATK: 2032 | RCV: 1000 | WT: 1099 | Dragon/Healer
LS: 2x HP & ATK for Dragon Type; 3x ATK when 2+ Water combos. [4/36/1]
AS: 3x RCV for 6 turns; Heal Orbs more likely to appear by 15% for 6 turns. [CD: 8]

Overview. Mizutsune received FUA with the MH buffs back in December, making him much more viable as an RCV stick. He is, like almost every other card in the game, overshadowed in that role by Mel, who is capable of contributing vastly more healing, but partly makes up for it by doing more for the team otherwise.

Sub. Underrated, in our opinion. The HP of course leaves a lot to be desired, especially in the context of this collab. Multi Boost, two Skill Boosts, and FUA are all fantastic, though, and sum up to a more than usable FUA option. The lack of offensive awakenings is a real shame, but at least he's a Healer and can thus take the valuable Dragon Killer latents. His base active is also a bit of a weakness, since most of the time it isn't super useful. In solo play, though, the active has extremely good uptime (6 turns with a 8-turn cooldown), and can be used situationally to stall effectively if that's something you end up needing for a dungeon.

On the whole, Mizutsune isn't a sub without weaknesses, but isn't as bad as many people like to say. He's a very usable FUA on all sorts of team archetypes if you need what he brings to the table.

Lead. As with Gammoth, 4x HP can turn an otherwise extremely mediocre card into something sort of okay. This leader skill isn't exceptional and the damage multiplier borders on terrible, but if one is so inclined (or simply don't have many better options) the 4x HP combined with Mizutsune's huge RCV can enable players to grind through a decent amount of content.

Assist. This has some niche in erasing the fairly uncommon RCV debuffs, such as from Light Metatron in 3P Arena or from C11 Valkyrie. Generally, this isn't impactful enough to be worth a slot on your team. There are exceptions, though: a 4x HP/1x RCV team that's not exceptionally active reliant could in theory use this as an inherit to vastly increase the team's overall survivability.

Equip. Team RCV is a powerful awakening. Heart OE is also a great utility awakening and can substantially boost the healing power of whatever card it's on. This is decidedly not a bad function, but is still one-dimensional, a bit underwhelming, and perhaps even redundant given what Mizutsune's short active already does.

Legiana [ Sub: B | Lead: C | Assist: A* | Overall: B+ ]
HP: 3403 | ATK: 2906 | RCV: 686 | WT: 1150 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: No skyfall combos; 4x ATK when Dk, Wd & Wt attacks at once; 4x ATK if board is left with less than 7 orbs after matching. [1/256/1]
AS: Bind status is reduced by 5 turns; Switch Orbs at random. [CD: 9]

Overview. Legiana is niche as heck. The base card provides team utility with unbindability and three Team HP awakenings, but doesn't really do much else. The active is strange and only somewhat useful. Most of Legiana's value comes from the equip form, which brings previously unseen water rows on an equip.

Sub. Great Attack and RCV stats are bolstered by some really nice supportive awakenings. Three Team HP awakenings is equivalent to having the Maniac HP badge (both give +15% HP) and should not be underestimated at all. On the flip side, to get that specific benefit, you're forced to sub an otherwise mediocre sub. Aside from Team HP and unbindability, Legiana's other awakenings are a big let-down, containing no SBR and zero offensive presence and including only the bare minimum of other team utility. The active is a powerful bind clear, but the secondary effect is also mediocre and the entire package looks underwhelming overall. We are in an era where a sky-high Attack stat sadly doesn't make up for real offensive awakenings, as 7c is just so, so powerful.

Legiana's thus a quite niche sub. Many teams cannot afford or would not want to run something like this for an HP cushion. It still manages to avoid a totally failing score by not being terrible in the niche it does serve, to be fair.

Lead. Tricolor activation is a thumbs down; glass cannon is a second thumbs down. This style of leader skill is pretty cool, but Awoken Raphael is still much better if you enjoy this playstyle and don't mind playing a glass cannon. Legiana's tankiness compared to Raphael is overshadowed by some comparative weaknesses. Team HP is a fantastic awakening, but you must always remember that Team HP comes at the cost of other awakenings. In this case, the cost means Legiana has no offensive awakenings, no SBR, and the just the bare minimum of other utiity awakenings. Further, a lower multiplier, harder activation, and relatively poor base active compared to Raphael all do not help any of this. In the face of all these inferiorities, unbindability is just a consolation prize.

Assist. The skill is fairly niche; the real value is in the equip evolution. Bind clear and orb refresh is a strange combination without a lot of overall utility and is not consistently reliable enough to be worth it most of the time.

Equip. Functions very similarly to Ronia equip for blue teams. This particularly shines in farming builds, where it can be usd to add significant damage to hit breakpoints and secure kills on spawns. The ability to add damage to a farming build without using an active or a sub slot allows builds to potentially exceed their regular capabilities and clear content better and more efficiently. Water rows also add to Ibaraki-Doji's damage enhance multiplier, allowing for a more powerful enhance, again at very little cost, for teams that do rely on water rows. Legiana can be particularly good on something like Kiri, who is difficult to inherit substantially meaningful actives on anyways (due to her long base cooldown) and benefits disproportionately more than almost any other card from a bonus 270 Attack (from both the awakening and on-color inheritance) due to her three Dragon Killers.

Rows have some moderately nonintuitive math associated with them; click here to show/hide a quick overview of when this equip might be most impactful.

Note that this equip is not nearly as good if you're not a farmer, though still usable if you happen to run water row teams.

Brachydios [ Sub: A | Lead: B | Assist: S-* | Overall: A ]
HP: 4102 | ATK: 3302 | RCV: 240 | WT: 1150 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 1.5x HP, 3.5x ATK for Light & Fire Att.; 25% reduced damage & 4x ATK when 2+ Jammer combos. [2.25/196/1, 43.75% shield]
AS: 300x ATK Light Att. attack to an enemy; changes top-most & bottom-most rows to Jammers. [CD: 18]

Overview. Bow down to your new buttoning overlord. (Note: if you're uninterested in farming, you'll probably be uninterested in the bulk of this review and can safely skip the Assist and Equip sections.)

Sub. Two Skill Boosts, two Devil Killers, a 7c, and the ability to take Devil Killer latents make Brachydios a force to be reckoned with in both farming and regular gameplay. Due to his ludicrous Attack and ability to be further latented against Devils, he is typically far stronger than even Shazel for obliterating Devils into the dust. His stat distribution and 7c allow him to pull his fair share against non-Devils even in the hardest of content and is a perfectly viable sub in Alt. Arena. The only downside for his usage on an actual team is the relatively useless and long base active. On a farming team, though, the base active is actually stellar: even without being inherited onto a button base, Brachydios nukes for over 1.1 million damage when hypermaxed.

We've mentioned repeatedly throughout this blog that light farming is simply not as much of a thing as GungHo wants it to be. However, with the direction that cards both new and old are headed, we suspect it might just be a matter of time. Light farming already has no shortage of good pixels, and in the last few events it has gained numerous row equips, a double row maker (Pixel Ryo from King of Fighters), and now Brachydios, a powerhouse of a Devil slayer. We do not make or change ratings on speculation, but do feel that this trend is worth pointing out.

Lead. Certainly not Brachydios' best use, but he does make for a surprisingly okay lead. Light in particular has some nice options for creating jammers, notably Fenrir Viz and Jormungandr-Ullr. It's still limited by the difficulty of consistently generating two jammer combos while having enough other utility, since the lead active is on such a long cooldown, and so Brachydios is not the most practical lead in the world. Still, with the proper team setup, he is well capable of Arena 3 with his great firepower and incredible tankiness. Toss some other 7c cards on the team and you're on your way.

Assist. We didn't think GungHo would release something like this quite so soon. NA players now have somthing to rival and surpass the previously JP-only Nappa and Android 17 buttons. He opens up buttoning possibilities that were previously impractical to many, including some weekday dungeons and lower-tier descends that often come around with a +30 event.

The jammer generation is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it can slow down runs if the active has to be used after a full board is already made. Swiping Goemon into Brachydios, for instance, results in a 3-combo board instead of a clean 1-combo swipe, which does slow things down. Builds that cut damage very close may want to be wary of replacing damaging orbs with jammers as well. Even taking the two extra combos into consideration, you will end up with approximately 9% less damage if you simply swipe. Finally, remember that if you are using Sado to make and save orbs, you must save the top row if you are using Brachydios in between the two row matches; if you save the bottom row, most of your precious orbs will be overwritten by jammers.

It's not all bad, though. The two jammer rows, at the same time, provide an excellent dual duty when combined with a full board: it's easy to make combos. With just a couple of moves, even very high combo shields can be broken with the double row generation active. Even better, since the rows spawned are jammers, he is usable to break combo shields on any color of farming team. You will never run into the problem you might encounter with Vaan, for instance, who is not usable on fire farming teams to break combo shields because the fire row he generates just gets eaten up in a full fire board.

Brachydios narrowly avoids a top of the line S rank due to the finicky nature of his active's jammer creation, which can lead to some inconveniences in farming builds. Don't underestimate him, though; he's still absolutely incredible and desirable. Note that the high rank is for farming usage only; for normal gameplay, this active is not worth inheriting at all.

Equip. So, let's get this straight. GungHo releases the strongest button in the game, with no HP conditional or any fancy strings attached. GungHo then decides to make an equip form of this with an Attack awakening as well, automatically increasing the button strength of whatever you equip this on? This is amazing if you plan on using the card for buttoning. Four light OE on a long cooldown equip can also be used to add damage to, say, a 3P UDR kill team if you don't have access to something like Paimon.

There's unfortunately a strong opportunity cost in making the equip form, as the base form is an extremely powerful sub as well. Dupes of course resolve this problem nicely, but if you only have one copy, we suggest not making the equip unless you discover substantial and significant usages that really benefit from that +100 Attack. It's not like that delicious active is going anywhere.

Kirin [ Sub: B- | Lead: B | Assist: B+ | Overall: B ]
HP: 3520 | ATK: 2650 | RCV: 655 | WT: 1100 | Dragon/Balance
LS: 2.5x ATK & RCV for Light Att., but no skyfall combos; 3x ATK when clearing 6 connected Light Orbs, to 4.5x (9 connected). [1/126.56/6.25]
AS: Adds 1 combo for 1 turn; changes top row to Light Orbs. [CD: 9]

Overview. Kirin's not an amazing card overall. Back when Monster Hunter first came out, it actually made for an adequately passable lead, due to how powerful rows were at the time. Sadly, even after a buff that added several more rows, it hasn't really kept up with the times and is today lackluster as both a lead and a sub.

Sub. An extremely typical light row sub that really doesn't bring anything special to the team. The massive Attack can at times be a downside when even damage is desired. There's really just not much to say here, to be honest.

Lead. Not bad, just outdated. Kirin plays almost identically to an unbindable light Meridionalis. Unbindability is a big plus; the wonky stat distribution on the lead (so much RCV and comparatively bad HP is a very questionable design choice given the leader skill) and a slightly weaker subpool are notable minuses. Simiarly to Meri, Kirin doesn't really need too many additional sources of light rows because having two Kirin leads already brings so many. It is therefore possible to choose subs based on other criteria without worrying too much about their row contribution, making monsters like Paimon and the farmable Orpharion quite respectable choices despite their lack of rows. Kirin certainly isn't an endgame lead now, but is still plenty viable through Arena 3.

While the following doesn't factor into our scoring, we have to mention that Kirin has incredible potential for the future as a farming lead. Light farming, as we know, has not been in a great spot for a while. However, GungHo has been slowly but surely releasing more and more options that nudge the game in that direction. Notably, Brachydios from this same collab is a powerhouse of a farming card and would gain immense value in a light-based farming environment; Pixel Ryo, released in the recent King of Fighters collab, is a light version of the extremely powerful Sado. While most of these options remain inaccessible to most players and still do not presently come together to create a cohesive farming color, it isn't unreasonable to hope that GungHo will extend this trend and continue to release more powerful and more accessible cards for light farming. If that day ever does arrive, Kirin will be one of the best light farming leads for a powerful multiplier, straightforward activation, flexible subpool, unbindability, and a no skyfall clause. Again, we do not rate cards based on pure speculation, but independently of that, we feel that we would be irresponsible to not draw attention to this trend.

Assist. This skill is pretty average. It's not an extraordinarily powerful light maker and probably isn't worth inheriting on most actual teams, as the impact is comparatively low. For farming teams, though, the row can be nice to combine with a full board changer to bypass combo shields; the additional combo is especially helpful for this.

Equip. Kirin equip gets a little more interesting. It's still not fantastic in most scenarios, though can have some reasonable usage on light row teams if you desire. The most interesting and relevant usage, though, is as a source of extra damage on Yog kill teams in 3P UDR. All Yog kill teams must meet a certain light row threshold (typically five) in order to actually deal enough damage to the boss floor. Rows beyond this threshold are occasionally still helpful for enabling players to one-shot other tanky spawns. Kirin equip provides three rows instead of the two that we've seen before from Rathios equip, and can therefore open up and diversify teambuilding for this dungeon.

If you do not need Kirin equip for a specific purpose, we strongly advise against making it for reasons outlined in the Lead section above.

Valphalk [ Sub: B- | Lead: B | Assist: B+ | Overall: B ]
HP: 3905 | ATK: 2704 | RCV: 505 | WT: 1099 | Dragon/Devil
LS: 10x ATK when 5 colors attack at once, but time to move Orbs is fixed to 4 secs; 2x HP & ATK for Dragon Type. [4/400/1]
AS: 1000 Fixed damage to all enemies; Changes all Orbs to Fire, Water, Wood, Light & Dark Orbs. [CD: 9]

Overview. Valphalk is one of those weird cards that doesn't look bad at all on paper but struggles to find serious placement on most teams.

Sub. Valphalk can be used as a generic 7c sub on any sort of combo team if you do not have a better option. He has a decent stat distribution, though slightly lacking in HP, and might be used to unbindably cover red for something like the new Dark Kali, though certainly does not excel at this. There's not too much more to say about him; he's a fairly straightforward card.

Lead. As with Nargacuga above, mostly a for-fun leader skill rather than a serious one. Everything we've said about Narga applies pretty much identically to Valphalk due to how similar they are, though Valphalk is numerically superior for sure.

Assist. Five-color boards with no Hearts are a done deal, and simply not very impressive. True damage nukes are always nice, but this one is incredibly weak and so has more limited utility than usual. There isn't really a scenario when this active would be preferred for either of its roles.

Equip. This actually gives more Attack than Samurai Zaerog equip for dark cards, such as Kefka, Zeromus, and Anji (though still not as much has Tigrex equip). It also gives a TPA, similar to Weld equip, and so is viable for that as well. The combination of TPA and an Attack awakening typically make this a stronger option than Weld on the whole, especially for cards that already possess TPAs or 7c awakenings. On the whole, not bad at all.

Amatsu [ Sub: S | Lead: B+ | Assist: A+ | Overall: S ]
HP: 9046 | ATK: 1622 | RCV: 62 | WT: 1249 | Dragon/Physical
LS: 2x ATK & RCV for Dragon & Physical Type; 4x ATK when 2 Water combos, to 7x (at 4 combos). [1/196/4]
AS: Removes lock status on Orbs; changes Dark Orbs to Water, Wood Orbs to Heal. [CD: 8]

Overview. Simply put, Amatsu is of the best cards in the game. Amatsu fills an almost incomparable multitude of roles and fills them disgustingly well. He is not essential for most purposes, but does turn out to be pretty much the supreme luxury card.

Sub. Upon his release, Amatsu was praised as being pretty much the best sub in the game, as at the time he offered a thoroughly unprecedented combination of powerful effects. Since then, the game has grown and evolved around him; more powerful cards have been developed and released...

... and yet, Amatsu is still the king. While there are now cards that perform better than Amatsu in specific areas -- for instance, Blue Cotton does more damage -- our favorite Storm Dragon still reigns supreme as far as the whole package is concerned. Where even to start? His unreal 9k HP (before plusses) opens up a wide variety of teambuilding options, enabling teams to tank hits and hit HP thresholds previously thoguht unimaginable. Two 7c awakenings is straightforward in usage, and make him an offensive powerhouse as well as a defensive one. FUA is another obvious perk, and is wonderful on what is already such a sweet card. Unbindability and a bind clear awakening are delicious, delicious icing, allowing him to support the team even further. He even carries a Time Extend for good measure.

Where are we going with this? We're not listing these things to state the obvious, as these are all traits any moderately skilled player would pick up just by glancing at the card. Let's try a thought experiment, then. Suppose that Amatsu didn't have one of these traits. Let's say he had 4k HP instead of his gargantuan 9k. He'd still be a dream of a card -- perhaps not among the absolute best anymore, but would he remain something that any player would love to roll? Absolutely.

The funny thing is, this isn't just some hypothetical we came up with to describe how great Amatsu is. Something analogus has actually been observed before. For a long time after his initial release, players would run Amatsu on Kushinadahime teams, despite lacking the correct typing altogether. He is so powerful that for a long time he was the best utility sub for a top of the line team, even though he got no benefit her passive multiplier. Very few cards can boast the ability to be the best even after being hamstrung like this, and it's a true testament to Amatsu's power.

This isn't to say he doesn't have weaknesses. All cards have weaknesses. Amatsu's include a very subpar RCV stat, a base active that doesn't always synergize with the teams he's run on, and a poor selection of possible latent killers. There are other smaller complaints (for instance, his damage, though still good, is no longer the absolute best) as well. None of these significantly detract from the fact that Amatsu is one of the best subs in the game and is essentially unparalleled at what he can accomplish. In today's combo-oriented game, there isn't a better option much of the time. He is an easy and overwhelmingly strong consideration for any combo team, as well as for teams such as Christmas Kali, bringing tankiness, utility, and firepower in equal and substantial measure.

Lead. Most leads that scale with combos of a particular color (ex. the now outdated Krishna suffer from being terribly orb hungry and weak until some impractical number of orbs is available. Amatsu actually performs far better than almost all of them for several reasons. His passive RCV multiplier works very well in conjunction with his naturally colossal HP, somewhat offsetting the lack of a true HP multiplier and readily enabling stalling in almost all content. His does not have scaling problems either: sure, four water combos are required to unlock the massive ceiling of 196x (which is significantly more damaging than 196x typically might be since you're required to match four main-color combos to achieve it), but the minimum activation of two water combos, requiring a very reasonable six orbs, still yields 64x. Even with this minimum activation, Amatsu is good enough to tackle nearly all content in the game. Sub selection will typically prioritize the same things that Amatsu himself provides: high HP, 7c awakenings, and ways to generate blue orbs in a pinch.

Assist. Essentially a Heroes active with an unlock. This is actually a fairly powerful skill for blue-focused teams, but nothing spectacular or unprecedented. Andromeda, for instance, performs a very similar function without the unlock. In harder dungeons and newer content, though, unlock effects gain significantly in value, making this scale disproportionately well into the later game, but inheriting Amatsu comes with the obvious opportunity cost of not being able to use him as a sub.

Equip. This thing looks unimpressive at first glance until you realize those are Team HP awakenings, not regular HP, for a total of +10% to total HP. It's hard to see how impactful or not this might be without some concrete examples. Typical Blue Hunter teams in coop have 130-140k HP. Simply for inheriting this card, your team HP increases by 13-14k. In a dungeon like Alt. Arena, for instance, this can easily be the difference between surviving Divine Queen Hera's 136k preemptive with room to spare and dying to it unless you're extremely close to full HP.

A few quirks to mention. First and foremost, making this is irreversible and means you do not have Amatsu to use as a sub. If you only have one Amatsu, do not evolve him into the equip form. If you have two Amatsus, probably don't evolve into this form either. Amatsu as a sub does lose value beyond the second, and so with three it is typically safe to make this. You see the issue here, though: you are probably not going to have three Amatsu, and so, even if this equip is objectively very good, the opportunity cost is far too high for almost everyone.

Additionally, +10% total HP is of course more impactful the more HP you start with. For Arena 3, this effect is most noticeable with teams (in either solo or coop) with total HP in the 65-75k range, as this bonus HP enables thresholds such as Gaia Dragon and Hera Dragon to be met without shields or latents. For Alt. Arena, this effect is (conveniently) most impactful with teams in the aforementioned 130-140k HP range, as this can allow teams to survive things such as Goemon preemptive, Divine Queen Hera preemptive, and various execution hits. You do, of course, have to balance the value of the added HP with how useful (or otherwise) Amatsu's actual active is for your team; the cooldown isn't that long and stands a good chance of coming up no matter what you inherit it on, especially in coop.

Finally, remember that HP is an odd thing: once you have enough of it to tank what needs to be tanked (and assuming you can reasonably heal up), it begins to decrease significantly in value. All these factors make Amatsu equip a surprisingly tricky card to think about in terms of macro-level decision making. Plan well.

Diablos [ Sub: B | Lead: S- | Assist: C+ | Overall: S- ]
HP: 4500 | ATK: 3162 | RCV: 503 | WT: 1250 | Dragon/Devil
LS: Board becomes 7x6; 25% reduced damage, 8.5x ATK when 8+ combos. [1/72.25/1, 7x6 board, 43.75% shield]
AS: Enhances all Orbs; Deals damage equal to 25% of enemies' max HP [CD: 24]

Overview. Diablos falls into the camp of cards that are quite spectacular, but straightforwardly so. He's not flashy and it's easy to understand what he brings to the table, but what he brings is so strong that even after all this time he's still one of the best combo leads out there. He shook up the game massively when he was released in Japan, and has remained a premier choice ever since.

Sub. In most respects, Diablos is quite a solid sub. Unbindability, great stats, reasonable damage, and a nice mixture of other awakenings can all add a lot to a team. If we looked at these factors, we'd expect to find him as a usable option on combo teams. He's rated so low and people don't sub him because his active skill is kinda hideous. 24 turns is nearly impossible to inherit over, and the base active, although handy at times, typically isn't worth the wait.

It's hard to overstate the importance of actives, so having one sub carry dead weight for most or all of a dungeon can be highly detrimental. Still, you could do much worse, and he's usable for his solid stat spread and nice awakenings.

Lead. Flexible in the extreme and one of the original backbones of the combo meta, it is not difficult to see why Diablos has remained at the top for so long. Unbindability and big stats add further to his usability. He still has one of the highest multipliers for a 7x6 leader for an activation condition that, on the expanded board, is fairly straightforward to reach. Even though he is technically a combo lead, the unrestricted and simple nature of his leader skill does end up supporting almost every playstyle (rows definitely fare poorly, though). High damage, 7x6 board, tankiness, a nice base card overall, and best of all you don't even have to pull one to make the most of him, since you can simply pair your own leader with a friend's Diablos -- what's not to like. He was unambiguously the best lead in the game when he was released, so what in our view holds him back today from hitting that S?

It's subtle and small, but Diablos is beginning to age and fall to power creep. He remains a premier pick for general purpose 7x6 usage and is still excellent for a large majority of dungeons. However, in the very hardest of content, he is simply beginning to falter. Though he's still perfectly viable in Alt. Arena, it is evident that his damage, tankiness, and incredibly unwieldy base active all fall just a bit short of what might be most desirable. Additionally, the historical compromise for the benefits of a 7x6 board was been a low multiplier. Almost all 7x6 leads before Diablos have had hideously terrible multipliers to compensate for their expanded boards; Diablos was the first to push that multiplier to a reasonable extent, and this is part of the reason he's been so successful.

However, with the advent of Li and other inheritable leader swaps, this is simply no longer a sacrifice that needs to be made. Why deliberately hamstring yourself with the lower multiplier and tankiness of Blue Hunter x Diablos when you can swap in a second Blue Hunter for a better multiplier in all areas while maintaining the 7x6 board? Moreover, Diablos is rarely the best choice for a 7x6 card to be swapped out, as his damage contribution is not top of the line (even Aten performs better against most spawns) and his sub potential is severely limited by his disastrous base active. Note additionally that Diablos (along with all other 7x6 mechanics) is quite terrible in 3-player dungeons unless you've coordinated with all your partners ahead of time.

Don't get us wrong: Diablos is still a flexible powerhouse of a card. His weaknesses are minor and somewhat readily overlooked, for now. He will continue to remain relevant for quite some time.

Assist. Diablos (and his skill up) used to be fantastic for cheesing dungeons with 100% true gravity. Since then, though, we've received Zeus Verse and Hera-Nyx, making Diablos active obsolete for most purposes. There are scenarios, though, in which the stroger true gravities of Nyx and Verse would hit a damage void and be negated, but Diablos' lower gravity can sneak under the void, and he does emerge as the best option in these scenarios. The active is still, of course, outclassed in general, but has a few use cases.

Equip. We're not sure how GungHo managed to make a card that is quite good and simultaneously also terrible. Let's start with the positives. Equipping this yields a TPA, a synergetic Attack awakening, and a dark resist. These are all objectively quite good; even though TPAs are currently weak, TPA equips are still a way to further amp up the power of a card that would otherwise have reached the extent of its potential. Dark resistance is always in demand as well, due to the prevalence of powerful dark hits, executions, and preemptives. Finally, Diablos equip conveniently bypasses one problem that equip evos sometimes face. Sometimes, you don't want the inherited skill to come up, as you are inheriting just for awakenings and the active isn't beneficial. Never fear: Diablos active is pretty much never going to come up.

The huge and most immediately obvious downside is that you have to eat your Diablos for this. Even though many players can have access to a friend's Diablos as needed, this is still a big opportunity cost; notably, you must own your own Diablos to Li swap. Another downside is that Diablos' active, while great in ensuring that some useless garbage won't come up in the middle of your run, will never be truly synergistic and can limit a team's potential more than extra TPA would advance it. Something like Barioth equip, for instance, makes the most out of both awakenings and active, and do not have such a limitation.

On the whole, we can't truly advise making this unless you have multiple dupes. (On an unrelated note, Diablos doesn't even have a TPA. What the heck, GungHo?)

Zinogre [ Sub: A | Lead: B+ | Assist: A- | Overall: A- ]
HP: 6007 | ATK: 3005 | RCV: 144 | WT: 1249 | Dragon/Physical
LS: 25% reduced damage & 4x ATK when 5 colors attack at once; 25% reduced damage & 3x ATK when 7+ combos. [1/144/1, 68.36% shield]
AS: Nullify damage absorb for 1 turn; changes all Orbs to Fire, Water, Wood, Light & Dark Orbs. [CD: 24]

Overview. More Fujin-style cards with Rainbow Haste awakening! Do I see a trend, GungHo? In seriousness, Zinogre is pretty swell overall and has a lot to offer. It's a genuine shame that the active isn't Uruka's board instead.

Sub. Zinogre's phenomenal combination of stats, awakenings, and active is powerful indeed. Most immediately notable is the combination of a Fujin-style active and a Rainbow Haste awakening. With a properly built team, this can be one of the fastest charging Fujin-style actives possible. The secondary effect, a five-color board, might not always be the most desirable, but does at the very least have synergy with the Rainbow Haste awakening itself (you'd think it would be silly for this to not be true, and yet Christmas Fagan was released). A rapid Fujin on a base such as Zinogre allows players to reduce the number of Fujin inherits required and still easily clear dungeons with absorb spawns by stalling slightly in between uses. Zinogre's stats and other awakenings are no slouch either, as he possesses meaty HP, unbindability, and a 7c awakening bolstered by a stellar Attack stat. Finally, three Time Extends is an awesome bonus, especially if a 7x6 leader is in play. On the whole, as long as you can accommodate Rainbow Haste, this is a card that's well worth a consideration.

One small disappointment is a lack of great latent killer options due to a terrible Dragon/Physical typing. He can still hold his own in damage thanks to a stellar stat distribution, but this does lock him out of being a top of the line threat alongside the other roles that he can perform.

Lead. A great stat lineup on the card and two shields in the leader skill make Zinogre a respectable lead. The shields give an effective multiplier of 3.16/144/3.16, which trades some of the damage present in today's top leaders for significantly more bulk. Unbindability is icing on the cake. Note, however, that like Blue Hunter, Zinogre has no sub restrictions whatsoever, allowing for maximally diverse teambuilding.

Five-color activation will always be annoying to play no matter what the colors are or what the lead looks like, and Zinogre is sadly no exception. On a typical board, there simply won't always be five colors, which can greatly hamper consistency. The best solution is a 7x6 board. Diablos has some nice synergy, as he can contribute significant tankiness even if his shield is not as strong as another Zinogre's (the effective multiplier is 2.37/102/2.37, which is quite good on 7x6). Pairing with Uruka is viable as well, though Uruka requires Hearts to activate and so can make activation a little more difficult, especially since Zinogre's active does not spawn them. On the other hand, Uruka conveniently covers two colors unbindably and brings a Fujin active of her own for longer dungeons with multiple absorb spawns (Alt. Arena, anyone?). Finally, though Zinogre himself features a hefty cooldown, the Rainbow Haste awakening does allow an inherited Li to come up more quickly than might be expected, making 7x6 swapping workable as well.

As with all double shield leaders, it is theoretically possible to stall and avoid doing too much damage by activating one shield but not the other. In Zinogre's case, this is slightly more difficult than usual due to the risk of either skyfalling to seven combos (if just the rainbow clause is activated) or skyfalling one or two missing colors (if just the combo clause is activated), and the relative difficulty of stalling is a definite weakness. It's also difficult to guarantee orbs for FUA without otherwise breaking activation; five-color activation is sadly unkind this way. Zinogre will never be a truly top of the line leader, but for what he is, he performs quite admirably.

Assist. The cooldown is identical to Diablos' and will probably never come up in a practical setting, but the active is not objectively bad. It's pretty straightforward when you'd want to inherit this, and equally straightforward that it's impractical most of the time unless you specifically prepare for it. That's just what Rainbow Haste does to a card, I suppose. At least it's faster than Leona.

Equip. The vast majority of the time, this is not nearly good enough to justify permanently losing the fantastic base card. Its one niche is as a SBR equip in situations where you need the sub's base active but don't have a way to prevent Sumire equip's useless and much lower cooldown active from coming up. The other awakenings gained are marginal at best and simply unnecessary at worst; one Attack in particular can be obtained from a ton of farmable equips as well as literally every MH equip. Generally not worthwhile unless you fit the specific usage case above AND have dupes.

Nergigante [ Sub: S- | Lead: A- | Assist: S- | Overall: S- ]
HP: 5302 | ATK: 2597 | RCV: 602 | WT: 1250 | Dragon/Devil
LS: 35% reduced damage, 3x ATK when HP is 50% or more; 4x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced. [1/144/1, 57.75% resist]
AS: Change left-most column to Dark, right-most column to Heal Orbs; +15% Dark skyfall for 4 turns. [CD: 10]

Overview. Nergigante has 1250 weighted stats and effectively eleven useful awakenings, making it kinda hard for him to not be good.

Sub. Well, this guy pretty much has it all. The only thing that you could conceivably desire for Nergigante as an upgrade is a better lineup of offensive awakenings, as three dark OE is quite underwhelming in the hardest of content. It's still more than enough pretty much everywhere else, and the ability to be God Killer latentted off of a nice Attack stat is moderately redeeming as well.

Really, though: if you run almost any flavor of dark team or dark-focused team, Nergigante is almost certainly good enough to be worth including if possible. The stat distribution is smooth with no clear deficiencies. The awakenings are absolutely busted, as Time Extend+ and Skill Boost+ give it massive efficiency for one teamslot. FUA is what turns Nergigante from "pretty good" to "totally incredible", especially coupled with an active that literally creates a FUA for you. Everything about this card is good. Use it.

Lead. Nergigante is reminiscent of Edward Elric in the HP-conditional portion of his leader skill. In both playstyle and multiplier, Nergigante is notably weaker than Edward; Edward is one of the best leaders in the game, and Nergigante falters too much in damage and in the inherent limitations of a sparkle playstyle to truly be up there.

He certainly isn't weak, though. A shield and damage multiplier for literally doing nothing is absurdly powerful, and as long as the hits don't get too massive, provide you with plentiful opportunity to stall, further enhanced (pun only partially intended) by the relative difficulty of accidentally activating a sparkle playstyle. Notably, the shield is 35% instead of the 25% shields we typically see today. The difference here might just seem like one of slightly more tankiness, but actually has a significant gameplay consequence: dual 35% shields allow a 99% gravity to be tanked without dipping under half HP, and dual 25% shields do not. This vastly increases the leader skill's usability. As far as doing damage is concerned, 144x with sparkles is admittedly not the greatest. However, due to dual Nergigante leads already bringing 6 OE and having no subpool restrictions, it is entirely possible to fix this problem by dipping into the combo meta: cards like Awoken Nohime and Awoken Uranus bring much more to the table than any OE sub ever could, and help to touch up the damage problem very nicely.

Due to some of these limitations, Nergigante might not be consistent in the hardest of content, but is still a formidable leader.

Assist. Double column makers are fairly uncommon to begin with, and double column makers that spawn Hearts are nearly nonexistent, with Wedding Scheat and Voltron being the only other such options (and both harder to roll than Nergigante!). This is a stellar active for dark-focused teams, as the Heart column guarantees FUA, the dark column guarantees damage to make the most out of the FUA, and the skyfall buff improves consistency on subsequent floors and wipes potentially unwanted enemy skyfall modifiers. It of course declines significantly in usability for non-dark teams, as Mel is a way to obtain a similar Heart column without all the irrelevant effects. Note, though, that it is easier to combo with a FUA in the very last column than it is to combo around one in the second to last, so even on non-dark teams the active still has this value.

Equip. The active itself, though perfectly fine and useful, is not what gives Nergigante an S- for assistance; it's this unprecedented equip form. This is the game's first ever Skill Boost equip, and the potential here is massive. Farming teams will absolutely love the ability to surpass their normal boundaries by packing more Skill Boosts onto a team than was ever possible before. Players using non-farming teams in shorter dungeons, particularly cheese teams, can also gain immense value from having an extra Skill Boost. Some dungeons simply require that a crucial and life-saving active be up immediately or nearly immediately, and Nergigante equip is a great answer for this as well. It additionally has significant applicability in ranking dungeons, where players never have time to stall and using an active to haste costs valuable fractions of a second. Equipping Nergigante provides that extra haste without taking an additional turn or incurring an additional animation. The possible applications of a Skill Boost equip are far more than we could hope to describe here; suffice it to say that creativity is the limit.

Teams designed to clear very long dungeons such as Arena 3 will not stand to benefit much from this; due to the comparative ease of stalling and the length of those dungeons, individual Skill Boosts matter less in context. Thus, if your primary focus is on dungeons like this, or if you are not really a farmer, or if you only have one of this mind-blowing card, think extremely carefully before you go forth with the equip evolution. The considerable opportunity cost of having to sacrifice a card as good as Nergigante in order to get the game's only Skill Boost equip is tragic, almost criminal.

Onward to the hunters!

Rathalos Hunter [ Sub: B- | Lead: C | Assist: A-* | Overall: A- ]
HP: 3629 | ATK: 1453 | RCV: 307 | WT: 755 | Balance/Dragon
LS: 2x HP, 8x ATK when entire team is from Monster Hunter Collab. [4/64/1]
AS: Reduces damage by 35% for 1 turn; changes 2nd bottom row to Fire Orbs. [CD: 8]

Overview. What stands out about Rathalos Hunter is simply the active. He works best as an inherit in some niche and farming situations, and is not otherwise typically amazing.

Sub. It's rare that this will ever be the preferred option for a sub since Tsubaki exists and performs his job more efficiently most of the time. Not terribly bad if you do not have Tsubaki, though; he can hit just as hard with Multi Boost and killer latents from his Balance typing, and has a much more useful base active to boot.

Lead. Well, the multiplier is okay, and that's all that can really be said about this. Achieving the multiplier is painfully awkward, and most leader skills like this are just borderline unusable. Still, 4x HP is solid, and so Rathalos Hunter does manage to avoid a completely failing score.

Assist. This is the real winner. We'll set aside the shield for now, since the uses of a shield are well known and pretty straightforward. The row component of the active has two main functions. Firstly, a farmable fire row active significantly benefits players who are looking to get into red farming but do not have (or only have one) Laila or Thuban. Row actives are always in relatively high demand for farming, and this one is quick, has a potentially helpful secondary effect, and farmable. No issues there. The second purpose is actually for non-red teams. Since Rathalos Hunter convers the second row, he puts the orb in a perfect position to make a 3x3 box in a very small number of moves using a simple pattern. This helps in both consistency and in situations where a damage void spawn time debuffs you, such as in Myr's descend. These two diverse and useful functions make him a great inherit to have around, and as such, this is the natural second choice for a Male Hunter evolution.

Mizutsune Hunter [ Sub: B- | Lead: S- | Assist: C | Overall: S- ]
HP: 3280 | ATK: 1863 | RCV: 166 | WT: 755 | Dragon/Devil
LS: 3x ATK when 4 combos, 9x when 10+ combos; 1.5x all parameters in multiplay. [2.25/182.25/2.25]
AS: Add 1 combo for 1 turn. [CD: 5]

Overview. If you're not in single player, this is among the best leads in the game. A respectable damage multiplier, incredible tankiness, an unrestricted subpool, and very straightforward activation add up to a powerful, lasting, and accessible leader.

Sub. This is, um, not exactly where Mizutsune Hunter shines. Probably don't do this unless you're in desperate need of a low-cooldown Dragon Killer base on some kind of team; even then, there are many, many other cards that do the job better.

Lead. Mizutsune Hunter is the real deal. As long as you're running in some sort of multiplayer setting, the substantial and unconditional multipliers can plow through even the hardest of content. The historical success of Ra Dragon has already demonstrated how powerful a tank-and-spank playstyle can be, so long as it has relevant and requisite strength. Mizutsune Hunter, outside of being bindable, is of course even stronger than Ra Dragon, requiring no specific orbs to activate and having no sub restrictions. The flexibility of this lead cannot be overstated: you can literally run whatever you want as long as it benefits the team in some way. With the correct sub selections and enough planning and skill, Mizutsune Hunter is readily capable of all content in the game, and is farmable to boot, making him the obvious first choice for a Male Hunter form.

This leader isn't without its weaknesses. Bindability and a very average base active are the first that come to mind, though the base active isn't too bad considering the leader skll and is at least easy to inherit over. He also suffers from poor damage control, making careful planning and a handful of Fujin actives necessary for a dungeon like Arena 3. Probably the biggest weakness is the necessity of playing in multiplayer; if you dip out of multiplayer for any reason, including an accidental disconnect, you immediately lose that portion of the leader skill and get dipped down to an average and frail 1/81/1. This strongly disincentivizes solo or DC play, which can be quite limiting depending what kind of player you are. All of these traits hold him back from being truly godlike, but for a farmable lead, this is as good as it gets, and you'll hear no genuine complaints from us.

Assist. Okay, don't use him for this either. This is an extremely low impact skill that simply isn't powerful enough to have any real synergy with anything. If you really, really need that extra combo for whatever reason, this is a sufficiently low cooldown and straightforward option, but, 5c BH jokes aside, you probably don't really, really need that extra combo all that much.

Diablos Hunter [ Sub: C+ | Lead: C+ | Assist: B- | Overall: C+ ]
HP: 3620 | ATK: 1969 | RCV: 0 | WT: 755 | Attacker/Dragon
LS: 4x ATK for clearing each Wood or Dark cross. [1/4096/1]
AS: Increase ATK of all monsters by 50% per Dragon Killer Awakening Skill on the team for 2 turns. [CD: 14]

Overview. We're not sure what GungHo was thinking here. This is a great meme card, but pretty bad otherwise. Don't turn your precious Male Hunters into this nonsense.

Sub. It has two Skill Boosts and a Dragon Killer. This isn't us trying to state the obvious; this is literally the extent of what Massacre Hunter does as a sub. Easily outclassed.

Lead. This leader skill would honestly be okay if it had any kind of tankiness. It might also help if the leads didn't have completely useless base actives along with 0 RCV. Unfortunately, we don't live in some kind of amazing Monster Hunter fantasy Massacre Hunter is, in reality, a pretty disappointing and unremarkable lead. It does do an impressive amount of damage, but that's simply not enough these days to make something practical, but it certainly can be fun. Multiplier doesn't mean everything!

Assist. This is probably Massacre Hunter's most relevant usage, and it still has low relevance overall The scaling is good, but you're unlikely to ever have more than a few Dragon Killers on a team (no, this skill does not count latents). In practice, this will rarely be the best option, though if you do lack a better burst active and run a team like Mizutsune Hunter, which already carries several Dragon Killers by default, and can fit more on without really hurting teambuilding, the card is still fairly usable.

Brachydios Hunter [ Sub: B- | Lead: C- | Assist: C+* | Overall: C+ ]
HP: 2746 | ATK: 1963 | RCV: 259 | WT: 753 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 3x ATK & RCV when entire team is from Monster Hunter Collab; 3x ATK when 2+ Light combos. [1/81/9]
AS: Inflict 20x ATK to 1 enemy, recovering 50% of dealt damage; reduces damage by 35% for 1 turn. [CD: 6]

Overview. You'd expect a new release to be a bit less underwhelming than this, but Brachydios Hunter just isn't great. He does deal great damage to Dragons in regular play, but TPAs can't practically be used on farming teams and so he's outclassed by numerous other options. To top things off, the active is bizarre and, most of the time, borders on unusable. Don't make this unless you have a specific use for him.

Sub. TPAs are a bit out of season, but Brachydios Hunter honestly isn't too bad as far as a TPA sub goes. Three TPAs and Multi Boost do add up to substantial damage, and he does snipe Dragons for massive damage. Unfortunately, Brachydios Hunter suffers from fairly middling non-Attack stats and a lack of other useful awakenings, so ends up being quite one-dimensional. Better Dragon Killers who do not require pronging exist as well, notably Tsubaki and Kiri. He does admittedly have a niche in being one of the game's strongest light Dragon Killers, but on the flip side this niche isn't too useful at the present. Overall, he's easily passed over for more powerful and generalizable options.

Lead. As noted in Rathalos Hunter's section, the multiplier, while not strictly bad, is just far too impractical. Brachydios Hunter additionally lacks any HP component to his multiplier, making him arguably even worse. Please don't use this.

Assist. This is frankly awful for most purposes and contexts. Sometimes the combination of a few weak effects results in a strong, efficient active, but this just isn't one of them. It does, though, have one niche usage on farming teams. After suiciding on an earlier floor, Brachydios Hunter can button a (very) weak floor (such as a py after defense has been broken), thereby healing and shielding enough to survive a small preempt that might follow, but not healing so much that you exit the HP threshold of a leader such as Machine Goemon. This is still an almost absurdly niche usage, and the skill is garbage the vast majority of the time.

Nergigante Hunter [ Sub: A* | Lead: B-* | Assist: A* | Overall: A* ]
HP: 2892 | ATK: 2042 | RCV: 170 | WT: 754 | Dragon/Devil
LS: No skyfall combos; 3.5x ATK for clearing each Dark Orbs in a cross formation; 3x ATK if board is left with less than 8 orbs after matching. [1/1350.56/1]
AS: Dark mass attack of 40x team's Dark and Wood ATK; changes all Orbs to Fire, Water, Wood & Dark Orbs. [CD: 20]

Overview. Nergigante Hunter is new, interesting, and highly controversial. Many players thought him unusable trash on release, due to his bizarre combination of effects. For many players, this is an accurate assessment. Those not interested in farming will be turned off by the bizarre active skill, equally bizarre leader skill, and awakenings better obtained from other sources. However, for players looking for good farming options, as well as endgame farmers looking to optimize, Nergigante Hunter is a thing of true beauty. Rathalos Hunter still sees better overall utility for a majority of users (and even some farmers, depending on how much optimization is desired!), but Nergigante Hunter excels at his specific niche and very few other cards can perform the same role.

There's a strange phenomenon surrounding this card in which many players vehemently claim that he's atrocious, and others push him as the best thing since sliced bread. What's going on here? The truth is, both sides have some merit to what they're saying. Consider the card in an ordinary teambuilding perspective. The active is absolutely terrible, as this nuke is utterly irrelevant in most ordinary cases and a four-color board with 20 CD is just the worst. The leader skill, while not truly bad, is quite underwhelming. The base card... well, it's not great, but it could definitely be worse, offering an adequate selection of utility awakenings. There are definitely better ways to get those awakenings for ordinary teams, though. Players who claim he is terrible refer mainly to these traits.

On the other hand, he is, incomparably, the best farmable button in the game. With no HP conditional and potentially immense damage depending on your team composition, he's practically a godsend for all sorts of farmers. For new farmers and veteran farmers alike, Nergigante Hunter unlocks options and optimizations that were previously impractical or inconceivable. 40x might not sound like much, but that's because we're used to evaluating nuke multipliers in the context of an individual card's Attack. This card considers the Attack of an entire team, making the 40x multiplier stretch much further. With proper teambuilding, Nergigante Hunter can plow through floors with a multi-target button in the upper hundreds of thousands of HP, a number that is typically only practically reached by inheriting, say, Vritra on a button base and at 1 HP. Nergigante Hunter doesn't need to be a 1 HP, though; the easy, powerful, unconditional, and above all, farmable button is why others claim him as amazing.

With all that said, there isn't a great dea of meaningful general advice about whether Nergigante Hunter is worth making; it depends entirely on you as a player. Think about the arguments from both sides and what you would like to do with your PAD experience. For the wrong player, he is atrocious; for a player who is ready and willing to make the most of him, he is beyond fantastic.

Note that unlike nearly everything else in PAD, Nergigante Hunter is actually stronger the more of him you have due to how perfectly he himself synergizes with his active. (The players who tell you to make five of him are only half joking.) This is not relevant or practical for most players, but if you are a mid-endgame player, like farming, and have the MP to spare, it's not inconceivable to make three or even four. We must conclude by reiterating that this is not a general use card for players who do not fit these categories; though fantastic in what he does do, he is also extremely specialized.

Sub. In the majority of situations where Nergigante Hunter would be useful, the two Time Extends are a complete waste. The other awakenings, though, can all be immensely helpful. Multi Boost in particular has great synergy with his sweet Attack stat, enabling him to hit quite hard even without being inherited on any sort of button base. In the most extreme case of a six Nergigante Hunter team, each active weighs in at 1,187,316 damage, which is enough to obliterate huge swaths of content without worrying about HP conditionals. Nergigante Hunter's enormous contribution to his own active as a sub is mainly why he benefits so much from having multiple dupes.

Farming teambuilding for Nergigante Hunter is too complicated and specific to talk about in general terms. Remember a few points, though. Multi Boost does multiply a card's Attack as counted by the active's nuke, so cards such as Jize, Misteltein, and the Hunter itself all contribute substantially more than most other options. Zeus-Dios, though much more middling in Attack, enables the killing of floors that cannot be buttoned, and is therefore also a strong option to sub alongside. D/G or G/D cards count both the main and sub-attributes, with the sub-attribute being worth 30% of the main attribute, as usual. D/D and G/G cards follow the normal rules as well, with the sub-attribute being worth 10%. Remember that every time you change a sub, stat inherit, or stat equip, Nergigante Hunter's damage will change as well and might need to be recalculated to ensure that it is still sufficient. For all the above reasons, Tengu is a preferred Skill Boost stick over Whaledor a large portion of the time on teams where Nergigante Hunter is used. Finally, mind the board change! Although it does not slow the active significantly, it does erase any board or orbs you might have created or saved on a prior floor.

Lead. The only thing this leader skill is practical for is when you're subbing something like Zeus-Dios on a farming team to grant enough damage to swipe an un-buttonable floor, but still need either more stats or an additional button active, so one Nergigante Hunter is used as a lead to fill this hole. No skyfall and 3x when swiping a full board makes this more than adequate as a leader for farming (preferably paired with something stronger -- perhaps Zeus-Dios himself) in many situations. As an actual cross lead, though, this should only be used for fun and is ultimately inferior to Aizen in most ways.

Assist. Everything about Nergigante Hunter as a sub applies roughly equally to assisting him. Be aware that he has an exceptionally long cooldown and that whatever you're assisting him on is very unlikely to be as powerful as Nergigante Hunter himself, which can significantly diminish the nuke's power.

Glavenus Hunter [ Sub: A* | Lead: S-* | Assist: B | Overall: S-* ]
HP: 3126 | ATK: 2050 | RCV: 101 | WT: 756 | Attacker/Dragon
LS: 1.5x HP & ATK for Attacker & Dragon Type; 8x ATK when clearing 8+ connected Fire Orbs. [2.25/144/1]
AS: Delays enemies' action by 2 turns; reduce enemies' HP by 10%. [CD: 11]

Overview. When it comes to farming, Glavenus Hunter combines moderate accessibility with huge power and diversity. If you don't have one already, she is by far the best choice for your Female Hunter. (Please note that Glavenus Hunter is relatively terrible as a non-farming lead and should not be played as a leader in the normal sense.)

Sub. Glavenus Hunter doesn't usually make for an amazing sub, but she does have one nice usage: she is the best farmable Multi Boost button base for cards such as Grimmjow and Vritra. She falters next to the truly top of the line REM options, but as a farmable she performs quite well in this niche and is absolutely worth a mention.

Lead. With a 2.25/144/1 multiplier for matching 8 fire orbs, Glavenus Hunter makes a fantastic case for coop farming. Unlike farming leads in other colors, fire farming has no issue with dealing many resolve monsters thanks to Pixel Echidna, who can pair with Glavenus hunter and sacrifice some multiplier for the ability to trivialize many resolve spawns. Fire farming's great diversity of other tools must be considered as well: sure, not every player has access to cards like Tsubaki and No. 6, but every player does eventaully have access to the fantastic farmable options of Goemon, Machine Goemon (and its base form), Surtr, and more. With everything fire farming can bring to the table, player creativity is a primary limit, and Glavenus Hunter is such a fantastic way for players to get started.

How different is Glavenus hunter from her biggest competitor, Yamamoto? The latter has the great perk of farming over longer content with more straightforward 6-orb activation. A simple fire row match gives 100x and allows players to save orbs and farm efficiently even in long (10+ floors) dungeons. Glavenus Hunter, on the other hand, cannot save orbs as effectively because she struggles to do damage at all without 8 orbs, but peaks much higher than Yamamoto. She is therefore better suited to wiping out tanky but shorter content, and tends to struggle more in dungeons that are significantly longer or more involved than, say, Zaerog Infinity. Even despite some of her staple subs only getting 64x instead of 144x for being off-type, Glavenus Hunter's co-op boost, high Attack, Dragon Killer, and still stellar sub roster compensate nicely. Her impressive Attack combined with Multi Boost also allows her to serve as a button base for Grimmjow or Vritra as mentioned above, something that Yamamoto absolutely cannot compete with. Finally, the HP multiplier is a neat bonus that is often unnecessary (since Goemon resets your HP to 1 anyways) but can be situationally crucial to tank hard preempts.

On the whole, the edge still must go to Yamamoto, earning Glavenus Hunter an S- instead of an S. Yamamoto will usually still deal sufficient damage for shorter dungeons and has no restriction or penalty to certain subs. It's no real shame being second best, though; Glavenus Hunter has many small perks that make her more than competitive, and, best of all, is accessible to almost every player.

She is, of course, not without her downsides (and actually shares many with Yamamoto himself). One of the main drawbacks is her bindability. This is further compounded by her dark sub-typing, making Nordis in particular, who preemptively binds dark cards, an irksome spawn; other diverse situations can necessitate bind clear actives as well. She also has no SBR, but proper teambuilding can typically easily overcome that. Other drawbacks include the relative difficulty in acquiring Machine Goemon, one of her best subs, and her 8-orb multiplier not allowing her to use Sado to his full potential. Finally, many players will admittedly and understandably be either limited in or turned off of red farming due to the higher accessibility and "good-enough" nature of of Zeus-Dios and Liu Bei for many dungeons.

On the whole, we still wholeheartedly recommend that you pursue Glavenus Hunter, as her farming prowess is unbelievable and she is a stellar (and occasionally the very best) option for farming higher-end dungeons. Content like monthly quest dungeons, Super Ultimate Machine Rush, and Super Ultimate Norse Rush are prime examples of dungeons that prove quite difficult for many other farming archetypes but are readily crushed by Glavenus Hunter and an appropriate setup. Feel free to check out Fireblaze's Glavenus Hunter playlist for examples, ideas, and other options. She opens up so many doors and is simply so powerful that we need to reiterate a third time: make her if you have not already.

Assist. Because she is accessible to nearly every player, Glavenus Hunter is kind of the baseline that we compare all inheritable delay actives to. She has a moderate delay and a minor secondary effect on a fairly long 11-turn cooldown: quite usable if you have nothing better, but nothing stellar either. Due to the accessibility and strictly average nature of this skill, we use it as a point of comparison quite frequently through this review.

Legiana Hunter [ Sub: C+ | Lead: B- | Assist: B+ | Overall: B ]
HP: 2532 | ATK: 2030 | RCV: 286 | WT: 1099 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 2x ATK & RCV when clearing 6+ connected Water or Wood Orbs; 4.5x ATK & 35% reduced damage received when matching a Heart cross. [1/81/4, 57.75% shield]
AS: Reduces damage received by 75% for 1 turn; 100k fixed damage to an enemy 3 times. [CD: 12]

Overview. Legiana Hunter, though cute, is not very good. The multi-nuke active is the only standout thing about this card.

Sub. Lacking both Skill Boost and SBR automatically eliminates a great deal of her sub potential. Water rows are not fantastic today and, as an archetype, feature many alternatives that are better than this. For farming, the stellar Kiri outclasses her in nearly every way as well.

Lead. Again, not having any Skill Boost or SBR really reduces the viability of Legiana Hunter as a leader. This is made even worse by her bizarre active, which is not efficient in nearly any context that you'd seek to lead with her in. She manages to avoid a truly abysmal score by virtue of her decent damage and strong RCV multiplier and can technically clear a respectable amount of content, but we can't really recommend her as an option for said content.

Assist. 75% shields are quite powerful and admittedly difficult to come by, so if you do not already have one, this isn't a too bad. She's more interesting, though, for being NA's first multi-nuke active. Some clarification on what multi-nukes can and cannot do: this active can hit multiple enemies despite being single-target, but will not hit them all at once. It will only hit a second enemy if it kills the first, and will only hit a third enemy if it kills both the first and second. Any unused nukes will not, however, carry forwards to a future floor.

Though this might seem a bit useless compared to the likes of Lumiel or Awoken Ra, the damage is enough to entirely kill the Super King floor that many rogue dungeons possess (Zaerog Infinity, for instance). Ra is actually just barely not powerful for this. Legiana Hunter also avoids changing your board like Lumiel, which is handy if you have orbs saved from a previous floor. Though niche and not a top priority for most players, Legiana Hunter's active is still certainly nice to have around.

Barioth Hunter [ Sub: A- | Lead: B | Assist: B- | Overall: A- ]
HP: 2986 | ATK: 1637 | RCV: 384 | WT: 754 | Dragon/Balance
LS: 2x ATK when 4 colors (3 colors + Heal) attack at once, 4x when 5 colors + Heal; 1.5x HP, 3x ATK in multiplayer. [2.25/144/1]
AS: Recovers 30% of max HP; delays enemies' action by 1 turn. [CD: 8]

Overview. Probably the most generally useful Female Hunter after Glavenus, and certainly the overall best sub of the set.

Sub. Though minimalistic in some ways, Barioth Hunter has some very nice self-synergy and ends up being a nice choice on a variety of combo teams. Nothing about her appears immediately impressive at first glance; digging deeper though, we notice the combination of 7c, Multi Boost, Dragon Killer, and Balance typing. These aspects together make her a flexible and powerful sub that can even find a place on endgame teams. Against Dragons, she has an effective Attack stat of 19188 when hitting seven combos, which is much closer to Tsubaki's 22077 than you might expect by just glancing at the two. The difference is in her Balance typing, which can be used to either improve her Dragon killing even further or shore up her damage against other spawns. Moreover, unlike Tsubaki or Kiri, Barioth Hunter is far from dead weight against non-Dragons, since her 7c awakening, her Multi Boost, and her customizability via Balance typing all enable her to contribute relevantly.

As the most usable sub of the Hunters, Barioth Hunter can fit on pretty much any combo team for great firepower and a well-rounded card overall. Her Dragon typing and high damage make her plenty viable on something like Christmas Kali as well. All in all, surprisingly powerful and overlooked, probably due to the rest of the Hunters being mediocre subs at best.

Lead. A lot more decent than some of the trash we've seen so far, but nothing exceptional and pales in comparison to Mizutsune Hunter. The sub selection is totally unrestricted and provides a vast diversity of rainbow teambuilding options. She does suffer from bindability, a lack of RCV multiplier, and the multiplayer requirement, but she's not bad for what she is. A fun lead to play if you want a quick break from Mizutsune Hunter comboing.

Assist. Strange. A 30% heal can either be nearly useless or respectably good depending on the team. A one-turn delay is, of course, marginal, but sometimes that one turn can be just what you need. This isn't high enough impact of a skill that you'd inherit for general purpose use, but more likely something you'd use because there was a specific scenario that called for it.

Kirin Hunter [ Sub: C+ | Lead: C | Assist: C+ | Overall: C+ ]
HP: 3532 | ATK: 1835 | RCV: 107 | WT: 755 | Attacker/Dragon
LS: 1.5x all parameters when entire team is from Monster Hunter Collab; 7x ATK when 7+ combos. [2.25/110.25/2.25]
AS: Add 1 combo for 3 turns. [CD: 11]

Overview. Aside from the artwork, Kirin Hunter is pretty bad at everything compared to the other Hunters and easily not worth 200k MP. Don't make this.

Sub. To be fair, she does hit Dragons pretty hard, but Barioth Hunter does this about as well without being absolutely terrible. It's pretty easy to pass on this.

Lead. Why did GungHo think that this style of leader skill was ever a good idea? For the third time this collab, this is not good. Don't use this.

Assist. What if we took a mediocre active, and instead of making it one turn, we extended it for three glorious turns of mediocrity? Yeah, we didn't think so either. There are some reasonable applications for an additional combo lasting three turns instead of one, but for the most part this is such a roundabout solution to a problem that rarely exists in the first place and is not worthwhile or efficient.

Nargacuga Hunter [ Sub: C+ | Lead: B | Assist: B | Overall: B ]
HP: 2965 | ATK: 1791 | RCV: 305 | WT: 756 | Attacker/Dragon
LS: 6x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced; 1.5x all parameters in multiplay. [2.25/81/2.25]
AS: 99 fixed damage to all enemies; creates 5 Dark Orbs at random. [CD: 8]

Overview. Narga Hunter has two main purposes. Firstly, this is a decent lead for newer players, and the forgiving tankiness and respectable multiplier can take them through Arena 1 easily and even as far as Arena 3 before they transition into a more generally useful lead. Additionally, this is a nice card to pick up for players that do not have a true damage nuke. Beyond these two functions, Narga Hunter isn't all that.

Sub. For most kinds of teams, there's really no reason to use this as a sub over Barioth Hunter. (Are we seeing a trend here?)

Lead. This leader skill has too many weaknesses for truly difficult content (one of which is simply being too weak), but as mentioned above, is not a bad way for newer players have a simple, tanky, mostly unrestricted lead that works okay. If Mizutsune Hunter weren't a thing, this would certainly be rated higher, but as it is, he simply overshadows her. At least Narga Hunter's damage control for the Arenas is modestly better.

Assist. This is a nice option that is available to most players for a small true damage nuke, and by itself is fairly useful. However, because Glavenus Hunter and Barioth Hunter are much more powerful, there's a strong opportunity cost associated with making Narga Hunter for this purpose, and most players would probably benefit more by skipping out on it. Remember as well that for many purposes, Legiana Hunter's superior nuke active is a powerful upgrade despite being slightly slower to fire.
Summary
Our apologies for the long delay. In addition to real life events, Monster Hunter ended up being quite a machine to review. Most of the cards aren't absolutely terrible and at least have some relevant usage, and the highest end rolls are certainly fantastic. The typical player, however, will not find the rates justifiable, and the 10-stone cost makes matters even worse.

Monster Hunter isn't a terrible machine by any means, and if you're feeling especially lucky it's not too bad to sink a few rolls in and see what you get. Like most collabs, however, the very top rolls are far too expensive to be worth actively chasing unless you're willing to sink a lot of money in; the free and farmable Hunters are the true prize.

To fans of the franchise, enjoy Monster Hunter: World! To everyone, best of luck with your rolls, and may your hunt be fruitful.
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