The game proper ends at Gaismagorm, then you reach the end-game which is mostly about boosting your MR rank to various heights to unlock new content.

• 10 gives access to tier 1 Afflicted monsters (tougher versions)
• 20 gives access to Wind Serpent Ibushi and 2* Afflicted monsters
• 30 gives access to Narwa and 3* Afflicted monsters
• 50 gives access to Furious Rajang (Always in phase 2/3) and 4* Afflicted monsters
• 70 gives access to Valstrax
• 100 gives access to Scorned Magnamalo (permanent enrage)

Increasing MR comes from completing any quest, and getting to MR30 is fairly easy. Past that, it can feel grindy, which is an issue for 2 reasons. I’m at 39 now.

First, you’re likely to be fully kitted out on your gear by this point due to “ease” of drops. A decent talisman from base Rise is going to be fine in Sunbreak, same with decorations. 4 slot decoration slots are not common, and the actual decorations aren’t terribly interesting (except for perhaps Bow/LBG/HBG). If you are hunting for mats, odds are it’s to kit out a different weapon set.

Second, the optimal path for increasing MR depends on if you are in multiplayer or solo. Multiplayer has a single quest that dumps trucks of experience for low risk. Single player, you’ve got a few options but if you need to meld, it’ll probably mean farming Gaismagorm with a LBG.

Afflicted Monsters

This is a bit like Apex monsters from the base game. The monsters hit nearly twice as hard, and have a new debuff (Bloodblight) which is a permanent DoT and vampire effect, rewarding aggressive gameplay. You can’t capture them, which adds some difficulty. There’s a shared drop pool across various types (fur, claws, etc..) that are used to craft rank 10 weapons. Breaking parts gives higher chance of collecting these items… and you want them.

Once you’ve got your items, not much reason to take on the difficulty these monsters pose. Maybe if they had a better increase in MR rank to compensate…

Follower Quests

For solo players, this is likely the best way to farm materials. Each monsters has a quest where you can bring followers along, who will heal/tank/damage the monster. Extremely effective for non-countering weapons. It helps that the AI is quite strong here.

This mode is like the total opposite of Rampages from Rise. Rampages were painful solo, and with some Apex monsters, a stupidly high difficulty curve. Follower quests give you multiplayer benefits (NPCs + their palicos) and some added randomness on the battles. If they could get the AI to man turrets, then maybe Rampages would make sense. An interesting experiment, that’s for sure!

Ibushi + Narwa

Isbushi is quite similar to his presence in Rise, with a couple more air moves. You only fight him, and in the smaller cavern. Nothing terribly complex.

Narwa though… holy heck. The first half of the fight (until the ridable monster shows up) is not terribly hard. Past that point, Narwa goes HAM and spams massive AE attacks. I would recommend that everyone enter here with 20+ lightning resistance, as it’s very simple to get carted on a double attack. It’s one of a few fights in Sunbreak where you always want to have a Wirebug ready to use. Where Rise could have you farm Narwa for talisman materials, it is absolutely not recommended here.

End Goal

Content drop 1 is due sometime in August. It will be interesting to see what comes in that in terms of balance/QoL changes. Aside from that, I don’t see much reason to move past MR50 right now. Maybe I can add a challenge to add another weapon type – Dual Blade elemental seems quite interesting.

I will point that this is still hours and hours of content, and way better than most games are able to release. Would be curious as to how this does compare to where Dauntless is now (also on Switch). Still highly recommended.