User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Behemoth/@comment-25119729-20181224120155

After trying one entire day to beat the Behemoth quest and only succeeding twice, with the first time actually being snatched away from me by the game crashing and sending me back to before the quest, I have this to say about Behemoth:

I am disappointed.

After the shit-show that was Xeno'Jiva, I really had the hopes that Behemoth would be the TRUE Final Boss of World. What we got instead with this collab was a living gimmick. Behemoth isn't really so far a monster in a game all about hunting monsters, it is virtually living Bait. Behemoth isn't designed to be fought, learned and mastered, it is designed to punish the smallest mistake on the players part, even if this "mistake" is something out of the players control. Giving you thunderblight because the lightning attack has both the actual attack as well as a little spark cloud right next Behemoth itself, setting you up with tremors, the horn drag which ALWAYS results in a pin if it conects and inflicts bleeding on top, the list goes on and on. Even the Ecliptic Meteor is by itself just that, a punishment for your mistakes. Except this punishment always one shots you, which really stings considering Behemoth still has the 3 cart rule of normal quests. What's that, the comets got shattered because Behemoth just spammed AoE attacks while not even aiming for the comets? Eat a instakill dickface! As much as I wanna like the attack just because of how cool it looks, I can't bring myself to it simply because of what the attack actually stands for. A final "Fuck you" to players just for attempting to fight this thing if they didn't put all their effort into either protecting the comet or mastering the timing on the jump emote. The fact that the Behemoth quest can be done at HR 16, while a Tempered Kirin is restricted to HR 49 already shows that Behemoth is more of a trap than a fight.

As if the punishing playstyle of the Behemoth hunt wasn't enough, Behemoth also takes the worst aspect of being an MMO-style boss. While the sheer damage of his attacks isn't that different from other endgame monsters like Tempered or Arch Tempered Elder Dragons, his sheer amount of HP drags out the fight longer than it should if you have a low number of players. Trying it solo or as a duo makes the fight go on endlessly because of all the HP you have to whittle down, while as a trio or a full party the phases almost can be quicker than you'd imagine. Having monsters be "Online only pls"-content in a game that in no way enforces you to go online is just a dick move, a trait Behemoth shares with Kulve Taroth.

On top of that, the phase in which Behemoth is in also dictates its moveset. While spamming is always a constant threat, the last two phases esspecially show how tedious and repetetive his moveset actually is. In 3rd phase Behemoth just spams the slam, the spin and the horn drag. From time to time it might even cast the multi-hit meteor. Meanwhile in 4th phase it is programmed to spam the fuck out of Charybdis in order to screw you over because the final area is the smallest you fight it in during the hunt (atleast in the Nerg route, it isn't as much of a problem on the Teo route). Programming a monster to use its attacks based on the players position and numbers is one thing, making it tedious by spamming the same shit over and over is tiresome.

In the end, all of the gripes I have with Behemoth could be easily fixed by rather small adjustments, even if I know these will never happen because "Behemoth is supposed to be hard you guys!". Since it is an MMO-style boss, why not raise the cart cap from 3 to 5? That way a party who is still doing perfect until last phase can get a successful quest, even if they all cart to the last Ecliptic Meteor. Losing your carves sucks, but it is better than failing the quest because you made one mistake and the comet got shattered. Give people who got pinned more time to fire their flashpods, so they don't have to rely on other people bailing them out. Being able to help yourself is always better than having to rely on others. And if we really wanna go the extra mile, increase the I-frames on the jump. I know the timing has to be precise, because otherwise it would render the comets redundant, since you could just bust out your jump instead of having to bother with them at all. But really, having you get insta- carted by a meteor hitting the ground while your hunter has visually already vanished from the map is just silly.

Really, Behemoth could be such a fun and at the same time, challenging fight, but all the gimmick shit is just keeping it from being a fun, worthwile experience.