User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Agnaktor (4th Gen)/@comment-15446856-20170120112113

I've been waiting for this highlight week for a long time, and now I can finally give my feelings about this thing. First, since this is about Agnaktor I shall take the opportunity to talk about its young, the Uroktor. Monster Hunter Generations revamped many old textures from past games, including attacks. Well I can safely say that the decision to change the indication where one is about to burst out from the ground from the bright circle in 3U to a crackling earth effect that's the size of the Uroktor's head is the absolute worst of all. In 3U you could perfectly see where it is coming and evade it clearly, and to make it even better it hardly ever got in range to even attack you. In Gen however I swear they pop out of the ground without zero warning at all, and to make it worse they attack far more than they did in previous games. If this was their attempt to make the attack look realistic and appear to be drilling through the ground then this is NOT the way to do it. This one change makes Uroktor a far greater pain and annoyance to deal with now due to the pure artificial difficulty of the effect being camouflaged due to it being the exact same colour as the ground. And for the appearance? Hardly anything to talk about on that. Its literally a mini Agnaktor excluding most of the interesting details. And now we come to Agnaktor itself and while several users here love it, I can definitely say I’m not one of them. Agnaktor is undoubtedly my least favorite out of the Leviathans, besides the Purple Ludroth's poison. While with Royal Ludroth and Lagiacrus I have enjoyment for the majority out of the fight with some exceptions like with Lagi's bite that in 4th gen feels broken due to the whole front half of its body now accounting to full damage and that it now has heavy knockdown. With Agnaktor I always keep on finding it to be a big hassle to slay. First of all is its lava armor, while with just about any other monster you can start attacking right away, you have to wait for it to make the first move to create a hittable spot, it feels wrong somehow for me that its near invulnerable until it attacks. The main feature of this monster is its unique digging styles and attacks, which for me is one of the negatives. There are several times when the assault lasts far longer than necessary and can give you a mere half second to avoid it along with coming at you from your blind spots. Unfortunately like all other monsters with digging moves in Gen, it uses those attacks far too often now (I'm looking at you Daimyo, Shogun and Zamtrios!) to the point where it is irritating to fight due to that. That trend makes me worry about what Diabloses fight will be like in MHXX, as if it gets that treatment it'll be a living hell. Also in the Volcanic Hollow it looks like the Agnaktor it clipping through the ground with its surfing attacking due to no textures surrounding its body to make it look like its actually cutting through the ground. Also gotta hate how almost every time it enters rage mode it goes into digging. As for its other attacks, the multi beak slam is near to Garuga levels of instant strikes that give hardly any warning to when they come. Actually no, the majority of its melee attacks are hard to evade in time, and something like that damn slide that homes in makes it even worse. Another problem is that there’s only three attacks it has that doesn’t have you rolling on the floor afterwards, I hate when they make a lot of attacks have that knockdown as it makes the fight at least for me feel like a pre 3rd gen one where any movement at all caused it. The absolute worst thing about Agnaktor's fight are the quake effects. No matter which way I look at them, I always see artificial difficulty due to the absurd range they reach and how the hunter is affected for near 4 whole seconds. Gravios I can understand because it looks heavy enough to cause it, along with the Mohrans that even though they quake nearly the entire area their shear size makes it feel like an small earthquake is being caused by the power of their weight alone. With Agnaktor there's hardly any indication on how it causes them since the movements that lead into those quakes make it look quite a light weight monster, it simply doesn't have the feeling that its heavy, making the quakes look like a bad attempt to stop players from attacking it after the digging assault or the body slam. When I try to attack it after those quakes it usually goes straight into digging again! What a time waster! After what I've experienced I'm personally hoping Agnaktor doesn't get a Deviant form as those abilities upped by even stronger attacks and health would be hellish. Another thing I do not like is that since the 3rd Gen Volcano isn’t present the BGM made for Agnaktor isn’t present either. It feels so unfitting that the slow tunes of the Volcanic Hollow play alongside a speedy monster and the other themes aren’t much better for it. Because it is missing the area it came from most nostalgia for Agnaktor just cannot be relived in the two other Volcanoes, and especially the Arena. Finally there’s the fact that you fight it along with its Uroktors that makes the fight even worse. Of there is one good thing about this monster I like, the design. It really captures the volcanic nature where it lives in. But sadly that alone cannot change what I think of its fight. And in addition to that there's the basic "get a full team of hunters and destroy a monster you hate fighting offline" tactic that makes online Agnaktor more tolerable. I certainly know some people here aren't going to be too happy that I hate the Agnaktor species due to it being one of their most liked monsters, but I cannot see what they see in it.