User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Lunastra (5th Gen)/@comment-24734669-20181214060321

Because Deviljho and Kulve Taroth were tedious and unfun to deal with, Capcom decided it'd be time to add an actual thrilling monster to fight. What better to add than Teostra's long-lost wife, Lunastra?

Lunastra was super dead before World picked her up, and they did a lot to amp her up. Arguably, she's got it quite good in terms of design. As with Teostra, she's gotten a nice, fiery new look to her, especially with the blue dust she emits (making her look really magical). Her theme is basically Teostra's theme but performed with a flute as well as a choir, making it quite a bit better than the theme it came from. Finally, her fighting style is now unique, rather than just being a slow Teostra. In all, she seems like a nice monster, and the first flawless update monster for once! Or does she...

First off, let's talk about those blue flames. WHY DO THEY DO SO MUCH DAMAGE? They can literally kill you in seconds! This would normally be a good thing on its own; however, Lunastra has taken a fancy to spamming attacks that spread those monstrosities all over the place, taking most of the fun out of what could be a neat concept. For some stupid reason, they also deal heat damage rather than fire damage, meaning that Fire Resistance does fuckall when fighting this big cat. Have fun dying!

"But MHAdvent! You like Arch-Tempered Xeno'jiiva, even though it virtually does the same thing! Aren't you being a hypocrite right now?"

Well, Xeno'jiiva is the final boss of the game! Although the regular one is a massive slouch, the Arch-Tempered version lives up to that title by being hard to kill and pulling off that sort of stuff! Even then, it isn't nearly as obnoxious as Lunastra is with playing "the floor is lava", and at least it deals Fireblight with its attacks like a decent dragon. 🙃

Anyways, moving on to the supernova. Teostra's supernova has been made much slower than in previous games; while it's a good thing that it's no longer instantaneous, it's also easy to feel that the attack has been nerfed, especially since it has limited range. Lunastra, however, overcompensates for that by bringing in the horrible pain that is her version of the supernova; that attack now has her explode twice, and the second explosion, although it takes longer to happen, is much stronger, covers the entirety of the area she is currently in, and can penetrate through the defenses of a Lance/Gunlance with Guard Up and Guard 5 (basically making it unblockable).

To add onto that, Lunastra is actually capable of motivating her husband to boost her already-dangerous supernova through bonding, so, when you're fighting Lunastra and Teostra suddenly waltzes into the battlefield, if you see the two Flame Dragons dancing with each other in the air, run like hell because they're about to unleash one of the deadliest one-shot attacks in the game.

As well as this, her hitboxes are pretty terrible. Why does her tail suddenly triple in length when she's swatting at you with it? This shouldn't go without mentioning that she loves spamming that attack when you're behind her, so expect to rage as much as you would when fighting the utter disgrace that is Deviljho.

Finally, WHY IS SHE IMMUNE TO FLASH PODS!? Sure, Flash Pods can cheese a monster to death, removing all skill needed to normally hunt the monster (especially when you can craft them on the spot); however, when receiving a buff that removes a certain playstyle, the monster has to make up for it by actually being a fun boss fight. While Lunastra is certainly more exciting than most other monsters, her blue flames, unblockable supernova, and janky hitboxes pretty much bog her down to Anjanath levels of mediocrity. To add insult to injury, this immunity would be given to one of the only actually shitty monsters to exist in the game... ''fucking Kushala Daora... shudders''

Oh, yeah, did I mention that she breaks her own ecological lore? Before, Teostra was always known to be the more aggressive of the two Flame Dragons, and would attack on sight, whereas Lunastra would always give warnings before going in for the kill. Now, in this game, since the Elder Dragons are residing in what is supposedly their nursing home, they have gotten much softer, to the point where they don't attack players unless hit; the only commonly-occurring exception to this rule is Nergigante, who, even then, will simply roar at you if you get close, only attacking if you stick around for too long. Then there's Lunastra, who is suddenly just as vicious as Diablos, Lavasioth, and Deviljho now... sigh

In general, Lunastra is objectively the best update monster we've gotten currently, but, even then, that isn't saying a whole lot; her painful blue flames, her overpowered supernova (yes, it should deal lots of damage, but it shouldn't be unblockable), and her wonky hitboxes barely make her any better than the pickle or the loot simulator. I also cannot forgive her for marking the point of no-return in the game's slow update power-creep; after her addition came the Arch-Tempered Monsters (which are all lazy and artificially difficult, save for Xeno'jiiva and, to a lesser extent, Teostra) and, a while later, the unredeemable JRPG abomination we'll be discussing next week...