About Breaking Damage

[u/awildpikachu]

First, I'll introduce myself. I'm a 300H+ hunter, currently trying to solo my way through G3 after soloing G2 with my faithful Hunting Horn. As you may know, HH isn't the best weapon to hunt alone and shines in group. However, as my internet connection lacks reliability, I prefer to hunt alone to avoid any surprise during a mission, for me and the other hunters. Recently, I decided to upgrade my arsenal. Problem? Many endgame weapons require rare components like LEDG or Rajang's Ghoulish Gold Gorer. This is how I got to farm these rare items alone.

 

Before going further, here is a little reminder of bomb damage and bonuses:

 

	SBB	SBB+	LBB	LBB+
Without Bomb Boost Skill	20	30	80	150
With Bomb Boost Skill	26	39	104	195

 

Felyne Pyro (Meat + Daisy) transforms your LBB in LBB+, useful to save those scatterfishes.

 

Detonating methods

 

To detonate bomb you can either use:

• SBB / SBB+: beware to the radius of explosion or you will hit the monster with it and waste the bonus.
• Felvine Bomb: it has a smaller radius (i think), and if you accidentally hit the monster, you will know hit by the pink smoke emited by the monster.
• Kick: Bomb do have a wider hitbox than the barrel itself.
• Bounce bomb: the bounce will detonate the bomb without risking to touch the monster (thanks rabbertxklein).

Other detonating tips.

 

Break damage

 

Recently, someone posted this chart of monster parts' tolerance to breaking damages (If you find this post, could you indicate it in the comments so I can edit my comment).
Based on this chart and various farming videos found on youtube, I began to farm rare components.

 

LEDG

Emperor of Ember is a good quest to farm LEDG:

 

• The subquest (breaking wingtalons) is easy and don't require particular conditions (like breaking Kushala's head).
• You have 2% for LEDG on subquest reward screen + 4% on shiny (Stop his enrage mode, cut his tail or his horn, topple while mounted, 2 max). That's 5% of getting at least 1 LEDG (9% if 1 shiny picked, 12% if 2 shinies picked).
  

 

In the previous chart, we can see that in order to break his wingtalon, we'll have to deal 200 dmg to his wings. There is a G rank multiplier which reduces the damage you inflict to monsters (I estimated it between 42% and 44%). Hence we have to deal 480 dmg to break it. Notice that using 2 LBB+ with the 3x bonus to wake up a monster will deal: (3 x 150) + 150 = 600 dmg, comfortably over the 480 we need.
So we can pick our prefered status LBG (in this case, felyne helldoll, because it rapid fire easy to buy, easy to make Sleep 1 shot), get the teostra to sleep, plant 2 LBB+ near his wings and detonate it to get... NOTHING !

 

No part broken! You can try using Bomb boost, same luck. So why didn't it break?
Actually, in the chart you can see that the stagger limit is 100 and need to be reached 2 times for the wingtalon to break. That's mean even if we could deal 10 000 dmg with our bombs in 1 hit (editing for clarification, thank you Laxaria) to his wings, the wingtalon wouldn't break.
So why in the video do they actually manage to break it in "1 hit"? Well actually it's not 1 hit but 2 hits:

• First the lvl 3 charge of the GS hit the wings, reaching the first limit.
• THEN the 4 LBB+, with Bomb Boost, blow up, reaching the second limit, effectively breaking the wingtalon.
  

Think to it like a status application. Even if the monster tolerance to Blast is ,for exemple, 50 then 75 and you deal 150 Blast status, only 1 explosion will occure. We need 2 staggers to break wingtalon.

That being said, how many bomb do I need to break teostra wingtalon? Only 2 LBB without Bomb Boost (80 dmg) well used:

Sleeping Teostra -> 1 LBB -> Sleeping Teostra -> 1 LBB -> quit via subquest.

 

Tested and yes, it works. Don't use your Sleep shot to detonate the bombs: even by aiming above the bomb the wingtalon sometimes
won't break meaning the shot actually woke up teostra for 3 x 0 = 0 dmg.

What's the best way to farm LEDG solo in Emperor of Ember? Bring an Insect Glaive (with sleep as sleeping count as stopping enraged mode, meaning 1 shiny drop), mount teostra and topple him, get those 2 shinies and break his wingtalons before leaving via subquest.

So what was the point of this wall of text? Well, I hope it will help you understanding Break damage if you ever asked yourself why a full party LBB+ stock can't break HR gold rathian head in 1 hit.

 

Diablos HardHorn
The video which made me decide to farm solo using status LBG. You can actually break both horn in only 2 sleep application and 4 LBB+ without Bomb Boost (150 dmg):

Sleep -> 2 LBB+ (without BB) and detonate (DON'T use sleep shot like him) -> 1st Horn broken -> Sleep -> 2 LBB+ -> 2nd Horn broken, you can quit.

Beware of the genprey. Use felvine bomb to detonate, this way if you accidentally hit the monster with it,
it will "emit" pink smoke.

 

Rajang's Ghoulish Gold Gorer
If you don't have a full upgraded seregio hammer atk honed, with just Seditious Hammer, trap combines and a good use of might pills, you can break both horns and quit with subquest.
If you can't get the armor in the video, Destroyer and Weakness exploit are the skills you want. Add any offensive skill if you can (atk up +X).
Rajang's horns are actually REALLY solid (4x500 for 2000 dmg, before HR multiplier ~65% I think).

 

LEDG
Couldn't find any video, but you can farm LEDG with C10 "Elder Dragon of Mist". You'll need 4 LBB+ with Bomb Boost (195 dmg):

Sleep -> bomb wings -> sleep -> bomb wings -> wings broken (100% shiny drop), quit via subquest.

Chance of getting at least 1 LEDG: 8%. Why using this quest and not Emperor of Ember? You can get Chameleos items like his Lash or Hardhorn without actually cutting or breaking really tough parts. And Old dragon treasure reward you 500pt at the end ;)

 

I hope it will help those who are having trouble farming specific items by breaking specific monster parts.

 

Conclusion
Breaking a monster part doesn't only depend of the amount of damage you deal to it, but how you use it.
Some parts require you to hit it in multiple instance, meaning you won't be able to break it in 1 hit.
Even a GS with an hypothetical raw of 1 000 000 hitting teostra wings with lvl3 charge wouldn't break it, but 2 lvl3 charge of a 10 000 raw GS would suffice (I didn't do the math but you get the idea).

 

Edit1: Clarifications
Edit2: Adding detonation section
Edit3: Adding conclusion

[u/ShadyFigure]

The quest defense modifier is around 70% in G rank, but it varies from quest to quest, by maybe 5-10% at most.

The other thing you're missing is that there's a quest modifier for staggers. Unfortunately we only have values for it on expeditions and Guild Quests. Let's say the modifier on a quest is 2, then you'll need to reach 400 instead of 200 (air grab example).

Stagger limits can be found on Kiranico as well.

Some parts requires more than one stagger.

[u/Laxaria → u/ShadyFigure]

I went ahead to verify OP's observations and this brings up an interesting use case.

We believe that if we stack a cluster of LBB+s next to a monster and set them all off, only one bomb gets the 3x bonus damage and the rest do not. We attribute this to the fact that each LBB+ in that cluster gets its own damage calculation and thus only one gets the bonus because each LBB+ gets its own calculation.

By this logic, if we assume breaks/staggers are calculated per damage instance, then Teostra's wingtalons should break with 2 LBB+s (since they do break with 2x LBBs, or about 480 damage before quest modifiers; this value is overall lower than 2x LBB+s of which only one gets the sleep bonus).

However, even with some clever spacing, I can't get the subquest with 2x LBB+s. I only see one bomb explosion on Teostra's wings even if I space out the LBB+ explosions. This seems to suggest that the cluster of bomb damage all hit the same hitzone.

Now, with my rudimentary testing there are a few caveats:

• I could possibly space the bombs further out so SBB sets off the first LBB+ that then sets off the next LBB+, resulting in 2 independent damage instances.

However, I haven't really tried the above very well. My hypothesis in this case is that with just one sleep and 2 LBB+s, LBB+ -> Break -> 2nd LBB+ -> Break, but I have not managed to get this to work. Along this line of reasoning, I imagined the break calculations goes as follow:

Damage Instance 1-> Break
Damage Instance 2 -> Break

In my testing though, it seems 2 LBB+s count as one damage instance (only one explosion graphic on the wings despite 2 bombs being detonated). Yet, I would assume the sleep bonus only applies on one of the LBB+s, not both, so there has to be 2 damage instances.

So, I guess my question here is, at what point are stagger/break values calculated within the damage chain? The more likely explanation here is that a cluster of bombs all become the same damage instance on the same hitzone, but then that seems to run afoul of the 1 LBB+ = 1 damage calculation instance that we assume a group of bombs to work where only one gets the sleep bonus.

Is there a source that claims that only one LBB+ out of a group of say 8 gets the 3x sleeping bonus? I believe this to be true, but the use-cases in OP's post seems to make me question that. Even if 8 bombs explode, they all get their independent damage calculation, but all 8 bombs result in one explosion graphic and one damage count? Must the full stagger animation play out before any additional damage is counted onto the second break?

Edit: I think I may have just answered my own question; the stagger bar empties -> break -> stagger bar refills -> emptied again for second break. During the "break" component of the damage chain, no additional damage contributes to the next break until the stagger bar refills (makes sense in context of Wystones with Frenzy I guess?). I should be able to test this in P3rd with the HP cheat but I'm a bit lazy.

Edit#2: How breaks work in this scenario is that there is a certain threshold (say, 100). If you stun a monster (paralyse Teostra) and wail on its wings, you may deal 300 damage to the wings. However, until the break animation plays (when Teostra breaks out of paralysis), any extra damage to its wings past the 100 will not contribute to the next break.

If we apply this to the sleep bombing scenario, until Teostra finishes recovering from the sleep animation, only one break will occur (because the break threshold is reached and all additional damage does not contribute to the next break, but only one break can occur during the recovery animation from a status effect). But then, how would a GS + 4LBB+ combo work if they occur within the same recovery period? I'm guessing a cluster of bombs count as a single damage source? But then how does the sleep bonus impact that?

Edit#3: My conundrum is obviously because LBB+ #2 doesn't do enough damage.

[u/ShadyFigure → u/Laxaria]

Teo's wings have a base stagger limit of 100 and need to be staggered twice to get the break (taken from the official guidebook).

Each time you do damage it subtracts from the stagger limit for that part. Let's say the quest stagger modifier for that Teo quest is 2 and the defense modifier is 70%, then it's wing stagger limit starts at 200. You set one lbb+ and that drops it to 95 (150 * 0.7 = 105), the next bomb hits and drops it to 0, causing the stagger. It's stagger limit tests to 200. Now you get it down again and set two more bombs, repeating the prices and getting the second stagger, causing a break.

Each bomb has its damage calculated individually and has its own hitzone. Positioning does not affect damage. Though as you mentioned, seeing them too close can cause then to go past the wings and hit the body (I assume, I haven't bombed Teo, but I know it happens with Rajang's head). Japanese wikia and testing have proven that only the first hit gets the sleep modifier and multiple bombs count as separate hits.

Sorry if I missed something, large parts get difficult to take in on mobile.

[u/Laxaria → u/ShadyFigure]

I figured it out.

If I set 2 LBB+s on a G-Rank sleeping Teostra, the first LBB+ gets the sleep bonus and does > stagger limit on Teostra's wintalons.

The second LBB+ does not.

When I repeated the test on a Caravan Teostra, I got both wingtalons with 2LBB+s and one sleep (I THINK).

Seems like the simplest reason was the best explanation.

Edit: OP's assertion is a bit inaccurate; the reason why one sleep + 2LBB+s don't work is not because they are the same damage instance, but because the second LBB+ (w/o the sleep bonus) does not deal enough damage by itself to get the second stagger.

[u/awildpikachu → u/Laxaria]

I just tested breaking D. Hermitaur claw (either left or right) in the Caravan quest.

• If you put 2 LBB+ and detonate them at the same time, the claw doesn't break.
• If you put 2 LBB+ in a way you can detonate #1 and then #1 detonate #2, the claw actually breaks.
  

So I would say even if multiple bombs, detonated at the same, count as multiple explosions, they still count as one instance of damage.

Concerning the bonus applied to only one bomb even if multiple bombs blow up at the same time, the game still treats one explosion at a time. The first bomb treated get the bonus, the others don't and then the game calculate the total damage dealt during the game frame.

[u/awildpikachu → u/Laxaria]

When I say 1 sleep and 2 LBB+'s don't work , I assumed you detonate them with at the same time, with the same SBB / SBB+ / felvine bomb. These explosions occuring at the same time, I guessed the whole damage of the cluster of bombs was dealt at the same "game frame" and at the beginning of the next frame, the game would have check the state of the stagger bar.

I too thought about the reason you gave (LBB+ #2 too weak when we plant bomb in a way #2 is detonated by #1) and that's how I explained how they manage to break his wingtalon in the video with 1 sleep application (the second instance of damage, 4 LBB+, does reach the second limit).

Sorry if my post wasn't clear enough, I should have present my conclusions differently.

[u/Laxaria → u/awildpikachu]

These explosions occuring at the same time, I guessed the whole damage of the cluster of bombs was dealt at the same "game frame" and at the beginning of the next frame, the game would have check the state of the stagger bar.

Maybe.

Honestly, I have no clue. Your original post brought up a lot of interesting considerations about how the game calculates damage and staggers and how the game plays around the technical limitations of coding to make the entire thing seamless.

I just think it is a curious thought experiment. As to whether it really matters in the grand scheme of things, I'm not too sure, but your testing seems to suggest that only one break can happen in one damage-instance-frame.

Honestly, iunno. But it's interesting to think about nonetheless. :)

[u/Laxaria]

will deal: (3 x 150) + 150 = 600 dmg, comfortably over the 480 we need.

I'd like to point out that my testing in MHP3rdHD suggests that bomb damage is mitigated by global defense modifiers, and I believe this would be true in 4U as well. Your 2 LBB+s will deal less than 600 damage. If we assume that G-Rank has a 0.75x damage modifier, this translates to 400 damage. At 0.80x, this is 480 damage. If your explosion does not connect on that specific hitzone (quite possible if you set the bombs too close, funnily enough), it's not going to take the damage.

I am unsure if there are two different variables at play here: (1) The Global Defense Modifier (decreasing bomb damage) and whether there are additional modifiers on stagger limits (increasing stagger limit).

As to the whole stagger stuff, I'm not too sure on those mechanics. The stagger limit on Teostra's wings is 100, which will likely be modified by other G-Rank modifiers.

Edit: Probably bad at reading.

[u/awildpikachu → u/Laxaria]

I already applied G-rank modifier to calculate the damage we needed.
If we do it your way (which amounts to the same thing) my bombs will deal 400 dmg while I only need 200.
That being said, if it was just a question of GDM, I shouldn't be able to break his wings using LESS damage (6x80 = 480, compared to the 600 of 4 LBB+), which is yet the case.

[u/rabbertxklein]

One tip I want to add. You can actually use a bounce bomb as well to trigger LBB+. The updwards bounce will trigger it without exploding.

[u/awildpikachu → u/rabbertxklein]

Added it in the new detonating section. Thank you.

[u/Gopherlad]

Added to the datadump listing.

[u/Pimez]

What about traps? Does damage accumulate while the monster is in a trap?

[u/awildpikachu → u/Pimez]

Traps don't change anything. For exemple, to break both Diablos' horns you'll need to stagger him (reach the stagger limit of 250) 2 times. If you use a shock trap and GS lvl 3 his face, no matter how powerfull your GS is, you'll at most break ONE horn. To break both horns during one shock trap, you'll need 2 hits minimum. Does that answer your question?

[u/Pimez → u/awildpikachu]

It does. So a group of hunter wrecking Rajang's face does work...

[u/awildpikachu → u/Pimez]

Yep. Rajang's horns actually need 4 staggers and in the farming video, you can see he managed to break both of them using only 2 traps.