Monster Hunter Wilds players are now fully sinking their teeth into the endgame—and while the discourse over difficulty proceeds apace, one thing seems apparent: Frenzied Monsters are, uh, kind of wimps. Some mild spoilers for the post-game campaign of Monster Hunter Wilds to follow.
In case you're unfamiliar, a frenzied monster in Wilds is a monster infected with the Frenzy Virus, which is, lore-wise, meant to make them go absolutely hog-wild and murder everything and everyone. It's a problem.
In terms of how this translates to mechanics, frenzied monsters are, in theory, far less healthy, but far more aggressive. Their HP pools are reduced in exchange for increased aggression and more erratic attack patterns.
Only, as players sink the teeth of their weapons into these things, they're discovering that the virus mostly just makes these critters kind of wimpy. As is evidenced below by a greatsword user, not doing anything particularly special, slapping down a frenzied Yian Kut-Ku in under 25 seconds (around 5 inputs).
25seconds frenzied yian kut ku kill in 5 hits lol from r/MonsterHunter
"Genuinely wondering if there's some kind of oversight or bug making them weaker than intended," writes a baffled player in response. "Frenzy is just... I don't know what their aim was," writes another, to which the thread's OP adds: "Yeahhhh, giving them a non-existent health pool was an interesting choice."
In a separate thread, with a choice Invincible meme, dunking on the game's frenzied cast abounds. One player writes: "It seems like they thought it was a good balance that they have less hp but attack nonstop/faster. Hopefully they either give them more hp or more damage (or both) in an update. Maybe some Frenzied Tempered Apex monsters as well?"
I actually had my first frenzied monster hunt against a Yian Kut-Ku recently, and while I was fighting it with a friend, I too had that same moment of "wait, that's it?" After grinding out a few of their healthier brethren for a recent event quest, the smackdown we gave that annoying asshole bird was almost cathartic, even if it was anti-climactic.
I'm a series newcomer, so take this with a grain of salt, but I can't help but wonder if frenzied monsters' flimsiness is a result of Capcom's overall tamping down on difficulty. The way I hear my contemporaries tell it, they had to walk up the hill both ways just to tickle a Rathalos before it flattened their spines, threw them off a cliff, and sent them into $10,000 of credit card debt or something.
Meanwhile, I've been having a relatively easy time of it. I didn't get carted until the final fight in the main story—a death due to me not understanding a mechanic, more than anything—and the only brawl I've struggled through recently was a tango with post-game Jin Dahaad, who ran me out of potions because I kept getting nailed by his ice-breath and forgot to bring the item that stops that with me.
That's not to say I don't get thrown around from time to time, I'm still learning the ropes, but I'd say that—in a Monster Hunter game where the monsters are a little defanged, maybe Frenzied monsters just don't make that much sense. Or, as some players mentioned, we simply need scarier critters with the frenzied status to wrassle.
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