User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Kulve Taroth/@comment-26421638-20181210193951

Never expected to see a brand new monster with a free update in a Main-series MH game, this caught me off-guard positively, however, when she has arrived I've realised the bad direction that is taking MHW with post-release content, spending less time with MHW day after day and praying for a possible localization of MHXX back in the day. Everything could change with the freshly announced "Iceborne" but let's go back with Kulve.

If we talk about Kulve herself, isn't totally a bad monster, she gives the perfect idea of a walking treasure with her golden cloak and her unusual twisted horns. I really like her roar, her amazing BGM and I like the idea that she resides in a golden cave. But... How about her moveset? Well, is not the first time where a large monster borrows some moves from smaller monsters of the same type (Like Akantor from Tigrex or Gogmazios from Magalas and more) but in this case Kulve shares MOST of her moves with the Fanged Wyverns trio (mostly from Fat Jagras/Dodogama during any phase or from "thin" Great Jagras/Great Girros during the 4th phase); she does have some unique attacks like the multiple headbutt, an upwards aimed flame breath or any "lava pool" Flame breath but that's not enough to make her unique. Her hitboxes aren't exactly the best too, especially anything that involves her tail.

Kulve Taroth would be an acceptable monster, despite being far away to be perfect but what makes her so bad? The answer is simple: an outrageous thing called "Siege Mechanic" . I don't have the proper english skills to explain how a Siege works, but I can put together a bunch of random words that can easily describe it "a freaking MMO raid where you waste your time by repelling a giant lootbox".

The first main issue about Kulve that is purposely made for online. If you don't have PS+/Xbox Gold or if you've Internet issues, you cannot even see the face of this Monster, a full-fledged brand new monster in a Main-Series game where is forced an Internet connection? I could understand in case of Frontier or other spinoff games but totally not in a Main-series game!

If you're going to do it online with an acceptable team, an half of an hour is enough to successfully break Kulve's horns (usually in two quests of 15 minutes) and complete the Siege, but that's not the case if you're trying to solo it. I've tried to solo her once, in two hours I've destroyed her golden coat, reached the last area and scratched her horns, and I've reached pursuit level 3... In two hours nonstop... Two hours, which means that an average player like me would take 4 hours to solo a Kulve Taroth from the beginning!? Where I can find 4 consecutive hours of free time? Come on! That's insane! Oh, almost forgot! In case if you DC for any reason (even fault of unstable server, connectivity issues etc), the Siege ends and you'll get some crappy reward, and you've to repeat everything from the beginning... I couldn't imagine a solo player who spent 3 consecutive hours of repelling Kulve again, again and again and then gets DC before reaching pursuit level 6... Kulve is just an HP-sponge helped by the stupid Siege Mechanic, difficulty-wise Behemoth or any Arch-Tempered Monster hits harder...

Her fight is separated by four phases, the first one is just the classic stage where you've to bum bum with cannons available just like an average large-sized monster like Lao-Shan, with the only difference that Kulve is smaller, a bit "faster" and you can drop some rocks to Kulve's head with you slinger or whatever you got, the second phase is where Kulve starts to fight, spamming rools (good to know that there's a safe-spot near her chest), breathe well-aimed flame bursts and melting the floor occasionally. The third phase is the same stuff with an different area, with high temperatures, lava, bad ledges but also rocky stalactites and lava geysers. The fourth phase is where Kulve reaches her full potential, without the heavy cloak, she became faster than a Diablos, attacks constantly, hits like a truck and is also capable to heat the whole area where melted gold drops from the ceiling. Despite being fast and aggressive during the last phase, is predictable and can be handled quite well, but unfortunately you're forced to focus your attacks on her head, which might be a big problem depending by your build.

Since you don't have to kill her but you've to break her horns, a common weapons/build may not work, you're forced to focus your attacks on her head, that's not a problem for (guess who?) any ranges weapon, then of course everything that could help to reach Kulve's head is more than fine like Paralysis, Sleep, KO Mounts or even aerial attacks. For this reason a bunch of weapons are totally not recommended against Kulve, especially if you want to suffer... Ahem... Solo her. Sure, pods can help any non-gunner user but is not even close to be a game changer.

And what do you get when you complete a Siege? Relic Weapons! One of my Most-hated features of 4U has returned in MHW! With the only difference that they aren't even totally randomized weapons! Well, since they are weapons with fixed stats without random variables we could craft them like any other weapon? ABSOLUTELY NOT! So here we go with some ol' fashioned RNG! If jewels or hero's streamstones weren't enough, let's add some Weapons that can be retrieved depending only RNG! Some of them are neat, others garbage. Is possible to get some valuable weapons but you may never get them if a supernatural entity hates you and if it doesn't want to see you with some good loot, of course you won't get anything!

Kulve Taroth armor is one of the sets that offers the highest amount of Defense and that's never bad, the skill are interesting for some mixed sets but works really bad as a full set. Aesthetically the one for males is a bit bulky but not that bad, the female one, despite being fan-servicey, matches perfectly with Kulve's design. Plus, this armor gives some nice effects with color customization: you can make it silver-looking, platinum-looking or even with the same coloration when Kulve's golden cape is overheated!

Overall: Capcom tried to do something of innovative with Kulve but they ended with a mess, a game like MH shouldn't deal with MMORPG stuff like RNG, lootboxes or multiplayer-only boss fights. They made a huge mistake... But not once, twice! What makes Kulve Taroth unique is exactly what makes Kulve so bad, probably a Kulve without Siege Mechanic would be considerably less outstanding but more tolerable. A pure showcase of artificial difficulty, but only for solo players and that's just the beginning... Because afterwards we had Lunastra, and then Arch-Tempered Monsters, then Behemoth... And sooner or later, Arch-Tempered Kulve Taroth...