Taking on your first hunt can feel a little intimidating, but with these top Monster Hunter Wilds tips, you’ll be an expert hunter in no time. Whether you’re trying to master the secrets of the Seikret or figuring out focus mode, we’ve got you covered.
Of course, there are heaps of different Monster Hunter Wilds monsters for you to challenge, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, along with a massive range of Monster Hunter Wilds weapons for you to try out. But with our help, you’ll be a fearsome enough fighter to make even a Quematrice quake.
Here are our top ten Monster Hunter Wilds tips:
1. The secret’s in the Seikret
The Seikret is a mount that automatically moves towards your objective or custom waypoint. You can also use manual movement to run around freely.
While mounted, you can use items, claim supplies, switch weapons, gather materials, use your slinger, and unleash powerful dismounting attacks. If you have the Master Mounting skill or perform two dismounting attacks in a single hunt, you instantly mount the monster, allowing you to perform devastating finishing attacks.
You can even whistle for your Seikret to come rescue you when you’re knocked down, which can save you from some pretty sticky situations. That’s one noble steed.
2. Try different weapons
There are 14 different weapon types in Monster Hunter Wilds, each with their own attacks and handling. During the tutorial mission, Alma asks you questions to help you pick one that best suits your playstyle. You can also try them all out in the training area at the back of Base Camp.
For the first time in the series, you can equip both a primary and secondary weapon, opening up a heap of different strategies. You could bring a hammer and a long sword to switch between breaking parts and slicing off tails, dual blades and a heavy bowgun to alternate between short- and long-ranged combat, or even two of the same weapon with different elements. Be sure to experiment!
3. Struggling? It’s probably a skill issue
As you progress through the game and take on bigger and badder beasties, you can visit Gemma the Smithy at Base Camp to forge and upgrade different armor and weapons with powerful stats and skills. Each monster has its own strengths and weaknesses, so you’ve gotta gear up accordingly – and ensuring you’ve got the right skills to cater to your target, weapon, and playstyle is a vital part of this.
Weapons offer offensive skills to help you in battle, such as Attack Boost, which (unsurprisingly) boosts your attack, or Speed Sharpening, which (again, unsurprisingly) speeds up the sharpening process.
Some weapons also come with skills tailored specifically to that weapon type, such as Charge Up, which increases your chances of stunning monsters when using a hammer’s charged attacks. So when you’re eyeing up a new weapon or upgrade, be sure to check out the equipment skills to see what benefits it offers.
Armor, on the other hand, features more defensive and utility-focused skills, which generally aim to increase your chances of survival. For example, Evade Extender boosts your evade distance, making it easier to get away from monsters, while Speed Eating increases your item consumption speed, making it much quicker to chug a potion mid-battle.
There are also some situational skills that really depend on your target and playstyle. Thunder resistance is useful when facing a Rey Dau, but won’t do much for you if you’re fighting a fire-breathing Ratholos.
If you like playing in a team, you can use Flinch Free to avoid tripping, which is particularly handy if you’re fighting alongside an insect glaive or long sword user (believe us, you’ll thank us later). You could also go for a support skill like Wide Range, which allows you to share the effects of potions and other items with your allies (believe us, they’ll thank you later).
A lot of skills have multiple levels, with efficacy that scales based on how many pieces you have equipped with that skill. Later in the game, you can also add new skills or enhance existing skills by adding gems to your weapons and armor, allowing you to further tailor your equipment to your needs.
4. Stay sharp
As you land hits, your melee weapons lose sharpness. You can track this by keeping an eye on the gauge on the upper-left corner of your screen – if it turns yellow or red, it’s time to sharpen up.
You can use your whetstone to sharpen your weapon, but doing so on-foot requires you to stay in place. Luckily, you can also sharpen while riding your Seikret, allowing you to keep your blades (and, for some reason, your hammers and hunting horns) in tip-top shape while on the move.
5. Pack your pouch
Preparation is key, so be sure to fill your pouch with all the essentials such as health potions, stamina restoratives, and cleansing items like antidotes and nulberries. You can also bring a variety of different ammo, traps, bombs, and other handy items to suit your weapon type and objective, and save presets for ease of access.
But don’t worry if you forget anything. During a hunt, you can claim handy supplies from your Seikret’s pouch, gather and craft items, or even fast travel to camp to top-up.
6. Rely on radials
When face-to-face with a beastly Balahara, the last thing you want is to scroll through your entire inventory in search of a potion. That’s where radial menus come in.
There are four pre-made radial menus covering fixed items, ammo, communication, and actions. You can also create custom radials to suit your needs, making both survival and socializing a breeze.
7. Slinger your way to success
The slinger is a vital piece of kit, allowing you to gather items from a distance, grapple, shoot projectiles, and even pull down environmental hazards like boulders to stagger and injure monsters.
You can find heaps of slinger ammo scattered throughout the map with a variety of unique properties, from the prickly thorn pod to the simple stone. You can also craft or purchase special ammo, such as flash pods to blind monsters, screamer pods to disrupt them, or dung pods to make them flee.
While out in the field, keep an eye on the left-hand side of the screen to see a list of everything in range of your slinger. This makes it much easier to adapt to your surroundings and ensures you don’t miss any valuable items.
8. Never hunt on an empty stomach
You can whip up a meal at any time using your tent or portable grill. Eating not only increases your max health and stamina, but can also buff your attack, elemental resistances, and more.
Different ingredients have different effects, and you can either go for the recommended meal or a custom recipe to enjoy a variety of bonuses.
9. Be aware of your surroundings
In addition to monsters, the wilds are home to different types of endemic life that you can use to your advantage, such as flashflies that stun monsters, vigorwasps that heal you, and more.
There are also heaps of environmental hazards you can use against monsters, including rock formations, vine traps, and even ledges and slopes that you can use to execute powerful sliding and jumping attacks.
Monsters also react to the environment. For example, the dynamic weather system can affect their behavior, and territorial monsters can initiate turf wars with each other.
You can use your map, field guide, and environmental notifications to stay on top of all these features.
10. Guard, parry, power clash… And don’t forget to focus!
While fighting, you can inflict wounds by repeatedly hitting a monster in the same spot, then use Monster Hunter Wilds’ focus mode to identify those wounds and perform focus strikes to destroy them. This deals massive damage and staggers the monster, while also netting you valuable monster parts.
Additionally, certain weapons allow you to perform perfect guards if you manage to guard right when a monster is about to attack you, which you can then follow up with a powerful counter attack. Perfect guards can also trigger power clashes, putting you and the monster into a brief struggle. Win this struggle to both damage and stagger the monster.
Other weapons allow you to perform an offset attack and parry the monster. This prevents it from attacking for a short time, interrupting its momentum and giving you the perfect opportunity to strike.
But hey, if you can’t pull off a counter or offset attack, you can always keep an eye on your health bar to identify fatal attacks, and rely on the ol’ faithful dodge ’n’ dive. You can also check out the Play Guide in the Info menu to check out the tutorial and tip lists if you need a refresher on any of these mechanics.
And those are our top ten Monster Hunter Wilds tips. If you’re ready to try them out, you can grab Monster Hunter Wilds now on PlayStation 5, PC via Steam, and Xbox Series X and S.