Gloves off is trigged by either
1. Taking a certain amount of damage
2. At least 5 (6? 7?) minutes has past with the monster being in the same room as you.
This skill is less useful in multiplayer hunts or in monsters that leave the area, but if you can stack it with the armor skill potential you can get some huge gains. This skill is really useful if you're doing an arena quest where the monster is always with you and it is especially good if you're in a room with two monsters at once.
I can't remember exactly but I think I was told that heat damage (from not using a cool drink) will trigger the skill even faster.
Oh and the skill is really only useful at +2, don't bother with +1.
And critical hits are pink sparks.
Here's all the hit catagories I can recall: (I play with animations turned to low, makes it clearer because it has less blood effects)
animation differences:
- Large, long yellow streak = mountable strike
- Yellow spark = normal damage
- Big yellow spark = weak spot damage
- Yellow sphere shaped flurry of sparks = head KO damage
- Tiny specks of yellow = bounce or resistant spot (bad, avoid)
types:
- Blue plume of smoke = sleep damage
- Purple plume of smoke = poison damage
- Yellow electricity = paralyze damage
- Blue electricity = thunder damage
- Water splash = Le water damage
- Fire plume = Le fire damage
- Dark red lighting = Dragon damage
- White/blue crystals = Ice damage
With blast damage it seems to be a plume of yellow/white which then becomes dark red before exploding. It's weird, nothing like in MH3U.