User blog comment:Kogath/Monster Hunter Generations Discussion/@comment-28908045-20160808232714/@comment-5569775-20160809001357

Not sure on the hit box of Glavenus' tail, though in general some hit boxes seem off.

Regarding how damage works: Each attack/hit from a weapon has a set Motion Value(MV) that helps determine how much damage is dealt. A Level 3 charge from a GS in Guild style has an MV of 110, which would multiply the raw my 1.1. The Level 3 charge also increase the sharpness multiplier by 30%, so a weapon with Blue Sharpness would doing a Level 3 charge would have a total sharpness multiplier of 50%(there's also an extra 5% multiplier for hitting with the center of the blade, but I'll exclude it for this). The sharpness multiplier is applied to the weakness of a monster, which varies between parts of it's body. As an example, Rathian normally has 44 on her feet, which would be multiplied by 1.5 to 66. For damage calculation you would multiply raw times Crit value if applicable, then times the MV, then times the weakness. So for the example: 190 * 1.1 * .66 = 137.94 damage. The game doesn't count decimals but if the weapon has an element, then it's calculated and added to the raw result and then after that the total is multiplied by a difficulty modifier(though I always forget the difficulty modifier.

By comparison a Dual Blade with 190 attack using the oh so popular aerial combo hits for a total of 120 MV(7*2, 10*2, 12*2, 15*2, 16*2, though not in that order) if all hit's land, but each hit is calculated separately. Now if all those hits can land on a high weakness area(45 for example), assuming Blue Sharpness then it will do more per combo than a level 3 charge from a GS. However, in the case of Rathian, if you vault off the leg you'll hit the wings on the way up and typically the back some before hitting either the torso or wings on the way down. The wings and torso both have a weakness of 25 and for a Dual Blade with 190 attack and Blue sharpness you'd need to hit a weakness of 45 to do close to that 120 MV.

In Gen a lot of weapons are pretty balanced with each other between Raw, Element, Sharpness and Affinity at least when it comes to comparable weapons; so it really comes down to individual skill and armor sets for the most part.