I've literally played a story mission to get the cutscene, abandoned the mission so I could do it multiplayer. It's something they'll need to address whenever they make the "monster hunter world ULTIMATE" edition whenever they do that, since it seems to be how they pump those out. Not sure I have it in me to play something this taxing and time consuming every year though, or even every other year, I got other things to do than spend a month and a half each year addicted to one game.
Can't speak much on dual blades other than if you enjoy a hit and run playstyle, a lot of weapons do that, great sword and hammer come to mind as two of the best examples for that playstyle.
Sword and shield is great though, 95% of my playtime is lance, and the other two weapons I put the most time into are sns and heavy bowgun. Sword and shield feels like a goddamn racecar compared to lance, ohh no I gotta sheathe myOHH WAIT THEY SHEATHE BASICALLY INSTANTLY VROOM VROOM MOTHERFUCKER. Good at sticking to monsters like glue (a feature I enjoy about lance, more on that later) however lack of range makes hitting certain weakpoints hard, albeit this isnt an issue specific to the weapon, lance just has...fantastic reach which I do miss when trying other weapons. It's got a reputation for being a new player friendly weapon, but I honestly think it's one of the more intricate weapons in the game.
Lance doe, I gotta pimp my weapon. Out of the 14 weapons in the game, it's rank 13 in terms of use ahead of hunting horn. I don't know why it's not popular, I've probably seen less than 10 other lancers in my over 500 hunts..and it's not a bad weapon (spoilers, there are no bad weapons). It's like, you have this huge monstrosity who is 50 feet tall charging up some mega attack, all other weapons would react "ohh shit gotta get out of the way", lance just says "hold my beer" and counters that shit. This weapon don't give a fuck about no monster roar, counter, no monster beam, counter, no monster hipcheCOUNTER. It took a lot of practice, but I don't even put guard on my lance gear anymore, with proper timing you can counter the fuck out of anything and it feels great. Seeing your team mates cower in fear after a monster roars, when I'm just countering through it using it as an opportunity for more pokes, it's delicious. I always liked lance in the other games, but it feels so good in this game due to how great counter (and a broke as fuck power guard which allows 360 degree blocking with a power counter attack afterwards). You know the whole "class fantasy" you play great sword you get the biggest numbers in the game, you play hammer you bash heads and stun monsters like nobody else, you play sword and shield for one of the most versatile kits in the game, you play lance to not give any fucks about no monster attacks because you gon keep attacking while everyone else is running around dodging. Low ish damage, but your uptime is higher than any other weapon, so while they are running around doing no damage, you are poking doing damage while they aint...unless you're fighting a flyer...then yknow......yknow...bring your flashbombs...yknow...be a good hunter and bring the proper equipment for the hunt.
tldr I love lance in this game, just wish I knew why nobody else does. But hey, I'm having fun with it.
Ohh and DevilJho however you spell it is next week? So i'll defs pop back on to give that a whirl. In the meantime I'm looking for another game to play and...learning python on the side whenever I'm not lazy...I got my text editor running...and I got python working in it...and I can type things and they will work properly...so might not have got much done but I AM STARTING, might be a while before I have the attention span to put many hours into learning that at one time.
*forgot about investigations*
It's kind of a dumb system. Not a fan. Monsters leave tracks, after X amount of tracks (not listed for the player to see) you get an investigation, might be something you want, might not. They have X amount of uses then they're gone, pass or fail they will get used up. Tempered tracks give you a CHANCE to get a tempered investigation, but not guaranteed...it's kinda really horseshit since the end game augment items for the tier 8 weapons (good news, tier 6, and 7 weapons are just as viable as the tier 8, really just depends on the weapon type and or what build you're using) ONLY DROP FROM TEMPERED ELDER DRAGONS, ONLY, AND THEY ARE STUPID RARE. I think I got 5? Hammer, Lance (thank god), Greatsword (and longsword, each stone works with two weapons), Switch Axe (charge blade), and Sword and shield (and duals). I think it's a 2% or less droprate, Ive gone a week and a half only doing tempered elders and haven't seen one stone, not even a common stone, just nothing, the rng for endgame is kinda horrible. So I'm guessing here but I wanna say I've been on the tempered elder train since hour 130-140? AFIAK? With that, 5 stones in 70-80 hours...it's gross, horrible, not good. At least the tier 6-7 stones are more common, and available in tier 2 tempered investigations (elders being tier 3, little wee bop enemies like pukei pukei and tobi kadachi being tier 1), so you can always switch weapons for the augment bonuses if that's what you're feeling. Lance wise, I don't even use the highest damage lance, and that's a tier 7 weapon, not even a tier 8.
I guess since im tldring all over I'll explain augments right quick. It's a system you flat out wont see unless you put 80-120 hours into the game, but after you do t2 or t3 tempered investigations and you get lucky enough to get a drop, you got warriors and heroes streamstones. 7 stones for 14 weapons, used on t6-8 weapons. At the end of your weapon upgrade tree, end of the line for upgrades, if said weapon is tier 6, you get 3 augment slots, each requires one warriors stone and some other rare stuff. If tier 7, you get two slots, each requires TWO warriors stones. If tier 8, you get one augment slot, requires one HEROES stone. It's like the "more powerful" weapons got less aug slots, and the "less powerful" got more, which is a cool way to balance things I think. I think that covers it...
However as dumb and fucking insane as the rng is at the endgame, you can make every piece of gear in the game quite easily. Any armor or weapon doesn't really take that much work, it's augmenting the weapons which takes a shit ton of RNG, it's augmenting the armor that takes a shit ton of $$$ and spheres (do your bounties bro, you'll need spheres), it's less..but still a lot of RNG for those decorations, some of which I literally haven't seen in 200 hours of play...yeah......rng...yeah...BUT HEY, any armor or weapon I want, I either have it, or can easily get it, and that's the stuff you're looking at on your character, so I guess at least the big stuff is easy, it's the modifications that's hard.
It's dumb, but apparently it's fun enough to where I engaged with that system for over 80 hours, so credit where credit is due.