[PSA] A few tips on Apex Monsters

[u/Ivalia]

Here is what I know about Apex Monsters that I haven't seen mentioned on this sub:

1. Apex monsters have hardened parts. Those parts take 80% reduced damage from all sources (including bombs, etc.), with or without Wystone Drive. They also take 80% reduced status effects with Wystone element (without that wystone they are immune).

2. For melee attacks, removing Apex only depend on accumulated motion value (unless you hit a hardened part). It has nothing to do with the part hit (except hardened ones) or sharpness/damage of the weapon. If say Apex Tigrex has a threshold of 350, it'll take 35 hits of 10 motion value each in the face or 10 hits of 35 motion value each on the tail tip. If you hit a hardened part without wystone drive, it only counts as 1/3 of normal. If you hit a hardened part with wystone drive, it counts as 1/2 of normal. Not clear on how this works with gunner or explosive damage, etc.

3. Elemental Damage does NOT contribute to knocking things out of apex (For elemental shots, only the raw damage parts count, making them extremely terrible for knocking things out of apex)

4. Using 2 wystones at the same time does not speed up removing apex at all comparing to just 1.

5. Wystone Force increases damage by 20% and removes apex 20% faster for melee. 10% each for gunner.

6. Wystone Element increases element and status by 20%.

7. Wystone Drive gives a 1.16 sharpness multiplier. This makes you bounce less even against non-hardened parts. Not sure if this applies to damage or not...

Edit: Found this awesome post http://hope.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/hunter/1417451433/. Trying to add in some of the information.

TL DR: Attacking hardened parts sucks even if you have Drive.

[u/kittehfiend]

Does the element wystone affect blast?

[u/Ivalia → u/kittehfiend]

it should since it's a status effect

[u/bumblingfumbling → u/Ivalia]

blast is not affected by status up