I have been playing with the SA but due to lack of good upgrade (until I get higher in rank) I decided to try the SnS , I really like the moves and the backward jump+charge attack , so much that I have not touched my SA since I tried this .
Is the SnS viable at higher rank ? I plan on using both but maybe more the SnS since I prefer to have better mobility/agility over dmg
SnS doesn't do less damage than any other weapon. There is an extremely complicated weapon formula but I'm going to dumb it down to insulting levels. Think of it as DPS.
Let's take <SnS> that has an Attack of 100. The attack value is not the actual damage you inflict on the monster. For the sake of argument, we'll just shave off the last number. Each strike you deal to the monster does 10 damage. That is not a large number, but you can swing very quickly.
Now let's look at <Great Sword> It has an Attack of 500. So by our napkin math, 50 damage per hit. But this weapon is very slow, and landing successful hits is actually somewhat challenging.
So while landing huge hits is satisfying, using slow weapons can actually drag out the battles much longer than whittling away at monsters with fast weapons like SnS.
For reference, I did a cursory examination of the highest True Attack (which is a hidden stat calculated by the attack value of a weapon and swing speed) [read: DPS, for our layman's study]
Great Sword: Ukanlos Skycleaver
Attack 1728
True Attack 360
Sword & Shield: Bescaled Dalamadur
Attack 462
True Attack 330
Now if you just look at the printed attack value on the weapon itself in the game, the margin between these two weapons APPEARS to be enormous. But when you look at their True Attack, the values are actually much, much closer, and when you factor in that the likelihood of landing successful hits is also much greater for the average player with a faster weapon, the Bescaled Dalamadur could arguably be more powerful in any given set of hands.
Of course, none of this touches on monster part defense, etc. As I stated in the beginning: there is a very complicated manner of calculating real world damage-per-hit.
TL;DR: All weapons are viable.
Whenever you hunt a monster/grab a shiny (this one in particular has stupidly low rates of success) in Expedition, depending on what the monster was you have a chance of getting a Guild Quest for one of 3-5 monsters afterwards.
http://www.reddit.com/r/MonsterHunter/wiki/guild_quest_monsters
I knew about drop rates, but the resource you provided is amaaaazing. Bless you.
Further edit: Since this is a large post (and those tend to attract attention) I'm going to take this opportunity to share a tip that I have learned over my career hunting monsters. I want to touch on this really quick because I've seen a couple posts regarding it. I don't claim that any of the information I am about to disclose is true or factual, just my observations.
When monsters start to salivate/drool, they are fatigued. They will start looking for food. Some monsters will fly or run away to eat. This is a great time to drop down Tinged/Poisoned Meat. I've had success in them just stopping what they're doing and chowing down after I drop it. Not only does this provide a huge window to do a ton of damage while they're munching, they don't often flinch during this period. Then, in the case of Tinged meat, the paralysis effect takes hold and you have more of an opportunity to let loose.
When monsters limp, their HP is extremely low, and they are "capture ready." In my 400+ hour career (which I know isn't much compared to a lot of our veterans here.) I can say with confidence that once a monster starts limping, it will almost always immediately run away to go sleep. Sleeping is the only way for monsters to recover HP. Food will recover their stamina, but won't heal them. This recovery process is fairly slow, and creates a wonderful opportunity. A monster that has fled to sleep is practically a guaranteed capture. If you have Auto-Tracker or a paintball in effect, you will be able to see the monster on your map. A red monster is "in combat," if you will; blue means they have become passive. If your monster starts to limp, LET IT GO. Do not chase it. Watch it on the map, you'll see it reach an area and slow down, and eventually turn blue. It's now asleep. If you chase the monster into it's sleeping area before it actually falls asleep, it will just continue fighting. When you are on your last leg and out of items, this can lead to a quest failure.
Walk right up to the monster, lay a Pitfall/Shock trap right on top of it, and give it a good kick. Two tranquilizers and it's a done deal. A capture-ready monster should never need more than two tranqs. More than 2 and it's not ready to capture, don't waste any more.
That's it. Sorry for the long post. Hopefully it's informative to someone.