The Absolute State Of The HBG
I have no idea what ghastly forces possessed the developers to take what was once the most build-diverse and versatile weapon in the series and turn it into yet another uniform vessel for elemental damage, with barely more than one viable playstyle.
Every HBG now has the same reload time and recoil as suppressors, reload assists have vanished, and base ammo is no longer a limited resource that demands careful management. The tank playstyle? Gone. Even the decorations don’t support it anymore.
Status effects? Barely manageable. Power Barrel? Gone.
Spread? Dead. Every shot throws you back so hard from its recoil you’d think you got sent back to an earlier installment- until you see the pitiful damage numbers and realize, no, this is very much reality.
The other base ammo types which you used to feel the impact of, pierce dragging its way through a monster like a hungry beast of it's own while normal felt like shooting 12 gauge steel slugs, all feel underwhelming to shoot now while doing very moderate damage. Spread has the opposite issue with shots sending you flying backwards for depression inducing dmg numbers.
To make matters worse, the ore tree- something you get for not even fighting a monster- outclasses every other HBG in pierce damage, as does the hope cannon on normal shots.
Every weapon feels the same now. The once-distinct HBGs are homogenized to the point where there’s little reason to pick one over another.
Only elemental ammo has been spared, but if I wanted to swap weapons every time I wanted to efficiently hunt a monster I'd play bow. Now if you don't like playing elemental Ammo, every other weapon just outclasses you in terms of raw dmg output to a outrageous degree. HBG is supposed to be adjustable to your personal playstyle, more than any other weapon. Building an HBG felt like imparting yourself onto it, now it doesn't anymore.
Virtually every other weapon received meaningful upgrades and modernizations (Though I heard some griefs from charge blade mains and LBG mains as well), yet HBG has been handed this travesty of a rework.
Your weapon is the most important part of a Monster Hunter game- it’s the lens through which you experience everything. Changing your weapon feels like playing a different game. And with this rework, it feels like Capcom just shattered HBG mains’ glasses.
Personally I can only hope for an update that addresses some of these issues or gives us ways to work around them in smart ways.