LogFAQs > #910628073

honestly just make any high rank armor set you can get easily to start out with.

after that, you'll want to start paying attention to what skills the armor has. armor skills are very important to getting good clear times. but for now just get what you can to get your defense up to high rank levels.

and as the above poster said, high rank is going to have a difficulty spike that forces you to improve. you're going to really have to start paying attention to the monsters movements and attack patterns, and learn how to tell when and how to dodge their attacks, and be positioned to properly counterattack afterwards. simply button mashing will only get you so far in monster hunter.

when you do start thinking about armor skills, here are a few things to keep in mind: defensive skills are on the whole never worth it. there are a few exceptions, such as using the guard skill on a lance, gunlance or charge blade, or using the evasion skill (which can be utilized as an offensive skill as much as a defensive one). offense is king in monster hunter.

dual blades in particular are going to absolutely want some sort of sharpness management skill. razor sharp, speed sharpening, handicraft (sharpness+) are all good options. speed sharpening might be the only one you can get until later on in the game. dual blades also work very well with evade window(which increases your invulnerability frames, giving your dodges a longer window of invulnerability and allowing you to dodge through attacks easier, and in some cases letting you dodge things in ways you couldn't without it).

one of the single best offensive skills for essentially every single weapon is weakness exploit. with it, when you hit monsters weakspots, you will have dramatically increased critical hit chance (50% extra at level 3).

other good options are basic offensive skills like attack up, expert (more crit chance), agitator (increased attack and crit chance when the monster is enraged)
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