Just beat the HR50 quest - GG!

I just beat the HR50 Allmother quests last night, which I guess means I've completed the final story quest for base rise. As a fresh hunter, it took me around 200 hours over about 6 months (I took my time). I enjoyed the Allmother fight and I like the Ibushi/Narwa battles in general. I soloed it with dual blades, which turned out to be a fortunate choice, as the aerial moves (demon flight, heavenly blade dance) seem to be a great match for Narwa's flying antics. I didn't find it too challenging - beat her on my second attempt. I mean, a lot of the moves are the same as the earlier fight, though she seems to get pretty nasty towards the end.

As my first MH game, I think Rise is really outstanding. I've had a lot of fun with it and didn't expect that I would be sucked in to the extent that I have. Think I'm definitely ready for Sunbreak (although I know there is one more base monster at HR 100). For now, I will probably take a break and play something else for a while, but I'm definitely keen to get into Sunbreak before too long. I was a little surprised that most of the later high-rank monsters didn't seem too challenging - I had really no problem with Kushala Daora, Teostra. The Apex monsters are beastly though, so I'm keen to have a go at those over the next few weeks.

Some thoughts on weapons:

I played most of the game with charge blade, which I really like for the complexity, flexibility and challenge. However, I have also tried all the other weapons and gotten some basic familiarity with them against monsters. Trying the other weapons really made me realize how weak the CB's silkbind moves are, which seems to be one of the biggest downsides for the weapon. Most other weapons have silkbind moves that act as cool new moves that expand the moveset and make it more interesting (dual blades, hammer, LS have some great silkbind moves). By comparison, morphing advance and axe hopper seem quite tame. I mean they're not terrible and I get that they can help to facilitate pulling off SAEDs. But, that just seems to reinforce the somewhat 1-dimensional focus of the CB on just spamming SAEDs all the time.

I like dual blades a lot and have been using them recently. They are really fun and probably the weapon that aligns most closely with the way I want to play the game, which is very fast, aggressive and mobile. But, they seem way too easy. DBs combos seem very powerful and easy to pull off, plus all the aerial moves and the awesome shrouded vault counter. I really want to find something with a higher skill ceiling.

I like hammer and hunting horn too, but again they seem too easy! Whenever I pick those up, I just trash the monster almost without thinking about it. Hammer seems particularly gratuitous: the leaping, spinning silkbind move is so easy to pull off and does a ton of silkbind damage. Three or four of those in a row and you've got a wyvern ride opportunity, which is basically a guaranteed down that will give another opportunity to dish out a load more damage on the monster's head.

I've dabbled a bit with the gunlance and it's a fun weapon that I will probably carry on using in future. It's nice to have a more defensive option and unloading a full burst on a monster is really satisfying. Although, it's a little off-putting to hear that the shelling doesn't scale well at higher levels of MR.

Two weapons I'd like to use more are longsword and sword and shield. I can see why LS is so popular. It's not just that it's the default weapon and makes a fun shwoosh sound, but it has a low skill floor and a high ceiling, so it seems to have a lot to offer players of any skill level. It has a really interesting moveset that seems quite challenging with all the counters and I'm really keen to try it out some more.

Sword and shield looks really good as well. It seems quite fast and aggressive, like dual blades, but with a more interesting moveset and a higher skill ceiling.

In general, I prefer melee weapons to ranged and I like to choose weapons that are both challenging and have a high skill ceiling, as well as being less common, that not everyone is playing.

Anyway, great game so far, and the Reddit community here seems really cool too. Onward to Sunbreak! :-)