User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Pink Rathian (5th Gen)/@comment-26421638-20180610090208

I really don't understand why Capcom brought back Subspecies in MHW... Unless if future updates will bring back more "cool" Subspecies, so far we have only three Subspecies and since MHW doesn't really know what "Quality" means they decided to bring back 3 crappy Subspecies from the 1st Gen. Instead of these 3 Subspecies, I've totally preferred some 4th Gen monsters or some older monsters like Gravios or even Monoblos instead... So we have Pink Rathian in this MAW and after hundreds of hours I still didn't found the purpose of Pink Rathian in this game.

There's not much to say about her design, but if Tempered Rathian seems made of emerald and Tampered Rathalos made of ruby, Tempered Pink Ian seems made of amethyst.

Gameplay-wise have a few changes but nothing of outstanding. AoE Fireball became a Pink ian's exclusive, she lost the fiery bite (became a move for Rathalos) but she gained a new bite. This new move causes a few damage but is quite annoying because is aimed and can chain it with other attacks (usually with charges, others bites of even with backflip if she wants it). Obviously she keeps the 360 Backflip, a traditional move shared with stronger Rathians for a while. But is fair challenge and definitely better than 4th Gen Pink Ian.

Equipment is good for boosting your poison tools but could be better.

Before ending my comment, I would "like" to mention how do you encounter your first Pink Ian, where you have to find her tracks nearly everywhere before unlocking her quest (even in areas where cannot encountered like Rotten Vale). That's probably one of the worst parts of MHW's main story, the whole "find tracks to get the quest" is just a lame extention of the story and since MHW really knows how to keep interest of everything (sarcasm mode disabled) they didn't do this track stuff once, not twice, not three... 5 Times! (6 if we count Deviljho). I could understand in case of Nergigante (or even Vaal Hazak) since they're new, but we're not talking about of a rare elusive Elder Dragon or an ED level monster, but it was just of a subspecies of Rathian that has been known from ages!

Overall: Beside a good cutscene, Pink Rathian doesn't have a reasonable role in this game. At least in World she is better than before and barely annoying but if she wasn't there I would be completely fine, perhaps even better.