User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Paolumu/@comment-15446856-20180409214153

Paolumu is a monster whose main gimmick makes no sense to me in an ecological way. Despite having fully functional wings that are just as effective at flying as any other Flying Wyvern, this thing somehow also can inflate itself. Why have developments of air sacs that puff up the fur to a balloon, when it can just fly like anything else with wings, and even move more efficiently doing so?

The rest isn't much great either. Other than, "it has white fur and is fluffy" nothing else is that good about this monster. How it fits in with the monsters in the Coral Highlands is actually pathetic. Despite being the mid class monster of the locale, it gets sent plummeting by Tzitzis flash and Legiana destroys it. That is, if you even manage to get the two to meet. I personally have never seen their Turf War once in game, because the two never end up in the area together, with Pao usually limping away before it gets the chance. Odogaron on the other hand completely mauls Paolumu, and you can definitely get a chance to see that Turf War happen, and its one of the best!

The fight is a facepalm in design. On the ground, it. has. not. one. single. unique. attack! Seriously? They couldn't give it just one new attack exclusively for it? Not even a Pukei style wind ball? No kidding, all Paolumu does on the ground is use basic Flying Wyvern attacks and use the one animation that it gets on the ground and that is to build up for its inflated mode. This is really lazy design here, absolutely nothing was given to the base form of this monster and it could have had several new things relating to it that it could use, but no. When Paolumu does inflate, it doesn't get any better. Time will be wasted as it floats out of your reach and moves as much as the Kirin, occasionally casting off wind "attacks" that usually have zero effect. And its strongest attack, is also its worst attack. Paolumu loves to be a dick with this attack, floating out of camera sight before slamming down on you, or flinches you and then does it, or maybe it will make a tricky movement to confuse you so you end up dodging right into it. And let me tell you, this attack has way too much damage for a monster like this! And worse yet, is that the attack also has a high stun ratio to the hunter, so you'll often end up in the "you're already dead" effect after taking the hit, after which Pao will of course do the attack again and you are one continue down!

Its a shame that the most enjoyment I get out of this monster is knocking it out of its inflation mode, wounding its puffed up fur and seeing it get devastated in Turf Wars. And in the future, the future update monsters that come to the Highlands will very likely do the same to it, further making this furry rat bat hybrid even more pathetic than it was originally. But I wouldn't care less unless they somehow make a better subspecies for it or add G-rank to add unique attacks for its ground mode.