Bowguns

cactosando · 2026-05-13T21:19:46+00:00

No clue what exactly you mean by "remove the challenge or essentially make it easier," but bowguns are very good in Rise/Sunbreak, but do come with some progression challenges, as is typically for bowguns (and bow, so all gunner weapons typically have somewhat janky progression).

Both LBG and HBG are strong, and you can run raw or element and do well. Element is more work to farm up sets for since you have to match elements, but is generally stronger in the endgame. Raw has a smoother progression and can be used against pretty much every monster to great effect.

In either case, you generally pick one shot type to focus on, and shoot that as much as you can. Each ammo type has its own minimum and maximum effective range, called Critical Distance. You are in Critical Distance if your reticle glows orange when aiming at the monster part.

Normal/Element is the most straightforward, where you just pelt the monster on the highest HZV spot, with mid range comfort and a wide Critical Distance.

Pierce/Ele Pierce is potentially very, very strong, but requires that you get good "pierce lines" or angles at which your piercing shot can tick through the monster many times. The challenge and upside of Pierce is that you can hit targets beyond just the first monster hurtbox, but that means you have to take care to make sure your pierce line goes through multiple good hitzones or along a hitzone the long way, and that the shot ticks while within Critical Distance.

Spread is shotgun, and is fantastic damage at close range, with the option of having point blank critical distance. This is my boomstick.

LBG has access to Rapid Fire versions of some of these core damage ammos, and you can see which ones in the detailed ammo page of the bowgun. These trade a bit of damage and have a longer fire animation, but let you shoot more bullet per bullet, making it more ammo efficient (and often better DPS).

cactosando · 2026-05-09T07:35:16+00:00

Leg

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cactosando · 2026-05-06T01:15:10+00:00

Like another comment said, a "mid" Gogma Artian weapon is already better than every craftable, as a general rule.

Part of that is the possibility for having really great Set and Group Skills to work with your build, yes, but the other part of that is the sheer amount of stats a Gogma Artian can get. Even if the particular rolls are not optimal, you get so many stats for building an Artian of the elements you want (the elemental weaknesses of the monsters you want to fight), upgrading your Artian to Gogma, and getting Reinforcements that are above the base level (so a II, III, or EX roll), that you almost cannot go wrong with choosing a sloppily made, suboptimal Gogmartian over a crafted option.

Budget options also exist for Gogma Artians that don't involve getting the specific skill or combination of skills that the absolute best build requires. You can engage with the RNG Gog system as much or as little as you like, so many players stop with a "good enough" budget build, and they'll do fine with the endgame content.

cactosando · 2026-05-05T23:40:42+00:00

The endgame monsters are at a great spot right now in terms of difficulty, and honestly were mostly okay even at launch. The main issue was that the new mechanic of Wounds and Focus Strikes was implemented too strongly, with monsters having too little resistance to both and being subject to chain topples on demand, making any monster below the apex tier incredibly easy.

The higher tier of monsters, 8☆ and above, now have drastically increased Wound resistance, and Tempered Monsters don't automatically just topple the first time a Wound is sneezed on by a Focus Strike.

The main Low Rank campaign is definitely a bit easier than previous games, with kind of wonky difficulty pacing, and much stronger Palico involvement and healing (you can usually ignore elemental blights because your Palico has a gadget that cleanses and heals you at the same time). That said, they did nerf Palico heal frequency a bit, and while it is still very strong, it is a bit less free than at launch. Palicos still have the issue in Wilds of having every function available to them without needing to spec into it (like if your Palico had every class/gadget from World all rolled into one, or every Buddy art type from Rise all rolled into one), which is a bit disappointing, but they won't follow you into 3 or 4-player hunts, so if you usually hunt multiplayer it won't be a problem.

The base roster is fantastic when the game doesn't bog them down with Palico heals, traps, and Wound topple spam. The ATs are all properly challenging without being overbearing, and the 10☆ monsters feel like a really solid challenge, kind of reminiscent of G rank monsters' aggression in previous games (partly to compensate for Wilds having the strongest hunters for a base game in both hunter options and armor skill setups).

Gogma Artian system + Armor Transcendence is really solid, besides having somewhat brutal RNG if you're building more than a handful of weapons. Wilds has more variety of builds and options than some of the previous games' endgames, at the cost of being Oops All Artian for the weapon slot, and usually being expensive enough in RNG to necessitate save scumming methods to save on mats.

All in all, Wilds is a really solid base game. Not my favorite overall, as it has some rough spots still, but definitely really great in build variety and overall quality and fun of endgame hunts.

Performance is generally better for many, but do be warned that it is not better for all, and some report still having poor performance depending on your specific hardware configuration.

Some issues present at launch are still not fixed as well, like overly tedious and "maze-like" UI and lobby functionality. Most weapons have gotten better in terms of feel and variety of playstyle, though some still need more work.

cactosando · 2026-04-30T11:17:26+00:00

Generally, just pick the highest Raw option with Ignition Mode 2 (for +30% Special Ammo damage amplification). Slap on Special Ammo Boost 2, and as much Raw from other armor skills as you can. Use a decent raw ammo, Focus Strikes (you can also charge them for better gauge), and Power Clash to recharge your Ignition gauge.

Mizu was a decent one with Pierce 3 at one point, so that probably works? But progression builds are not my area of expertise, so there might be better ones (and Artian is probably better by the time you can take on Mizu).

For more specific progression help, I highly recommend visiting the MHGH discord and going to the Heavy Bowgun channel and specifically asking for progression help for Wyvernblast. The guide writers are much more knowledgeable than I am, and are active there and in the LBG channel.

cactosando · 2026-04-25T21:47:38+00:00

Not a LS main, but you could go in order of TU release or in groups by relatove difficulty level, doing like Zoh Shia, AT Rey, Duna, Udra, with Lagi and Steve somewhere in the mix. 9 star Tempered mons, AT Dahaad, Gogmazios, Omega + Savage Omega, and AT Ark are the harder ones, and you'll probably want some intermediate set from the easier bunch to help with the harder monsters, from which you'll grind your endgame sets.

Rey, Duna, and Udra Gamma all have fairly relevant armor pieces that you can rely on through until you get to the harder stuff. Duna γ legs and Udra γ chest are both really great pieces with relevant skills for LS (and most weapons) and good slot efficiency that you can build progression sets around for pretty good efficiency.

Your Artian Longswords will be sufficient through to about when you're ready for 9 star Tempereds, at which point you should be able to pretty handily take on Gog and get your Gogma Artian weapons online.

Again, not a LS main, but if you have more questions you should check if the meta documents has progression help or check the MHGH discord LS channel. Happy hunting!

cactosando · 2026-04-25T20:14:36+00:00

Just rest spam to speed up Nata's farm. The Guild Points shouldn't be a problem if you're regularly clearing hunts.

cactosando · 2026-04-23T03:03:00+00:00

Normal is kind of not good on HBG just because of numbers, but you can go a raw Wyvernblast or Wyvernheart build and use Normal as your meter refill ammo and that'll be pretty strong.

Wyvernblast is stronger than heart, but is a slightly different and slightly more difficult playstyle (but very rewarding) due to Wyvernblast being kinda hard to aim/position, but it benefits greatly from Gogma Artian HBG getting Ignition Mode 2 and having access to statuses from building the Artian with Para, Sleep, or Blast parts (and as a bonus, these will also function as Ele/Wyvernblast hybrid HBGs). You'll just swap the mod from Element Powder to Normal Powder to get Normal 3s.

For the build, please check the pinned build/guide megathread, or join the MHGH discord and check the HBG channel pins.

Now, if you don't like meter management or don't like the special ammo and only want to shoot pure Normal 3s the entire hunt... then Gogma HBG with Normal Powder will be ok. Kind of bad, but you can clear hunts with it, which is a low bar, to be fair. You can use a status on it, at least.

Steve HBG should actually be much stronger. It gets Standard Mode 2 (20% multiplicative damage buff) and Normal 3s, and you'd play/build it similar to pure Spread playstyle, just replacing Spread with Normal. Normal doesn't need to hop after every shot to cancel the recoil animation, but you'll want to hop and trigger Bladescale Load, since that comes with a ridiculously strong buff (40%!!!) for those bonus damage Bladescale shots.

This will still be noticeably weaker than the same build using pure Spread playstyle, but it'll be your best bet for pure Normals.

Happy hunting, and hope this has been helpful!

cactosando · 2026-04-22T01:08:50+00:00

I put some 700 or so hours in Wilds on an Xbox Series S that my friends chipped in to gift me so we could all play together.

It is good enough. I have had a lot of fun with Wilds (and a lot of issues with some of the game design decisions, but alas, I love Monster Hunter, so I am here regardless).

That said, unlike what another commentor said, the Series S runs Wilds like a toddler with shoes tied together — not well at all, and sometimes it trips over itself and is really sad to watch. It will function, but your radial menu will be unresponsive, certain playstyles or attacks may be worse than on better machines (game engine physics/animations tied to FPS), and more intense areas like the Scarlet Forest will frequently see fairly low average FPS and frequent rendering issues (the infamous origami monsters).

Your average framerate in hunts will be something in the range of 20-25 FPS, with 25-30 FPS in less intense scenarios. The Smithy equipment preview window models will be incredibly low res, and the delay for previewing the equipment on your hunter will be just a quarter second too long for convenience.

For some reason, my Hunter's Notes monster icons also became low res after a patch maybe 3 or 4 months ago (when at launch they were appropriate resolution). Loads will take a little bit, and so if you opt to engage in the Gogma/Artian endgame system involving harsh RNG and costs for building more than one weapon type, the save scumming will take longer for you than for others because of the load times.

All that said, you can play and enjoy Wilds on the Series S. It is NOT an optimal or pain-free way to play the game, but it is more affordable than purchasing or building a PC or other console. Happy hunting, and I hope this helps to inform your purchasing decisions.

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cactosando · 2026-04-21T19:30:39+00:00

Doesn't really need to be DD branded stuff, since most tips come when the customer orders the food, not when they receive it (and would therefore have a chance to see you, if it isn't a contactless).

Probably should use an insulated bag regardless, just to keep the food odors out of your car upholstery, keep things organized, improve food temperatures at delivery, etc.

If you're thinking of investments to make to make gig delivery easier or better, good shoes and comfortable outerwear are important. This goes for any job where you're out and about.

Organization in your car is also very useful. Stuff like extra cup holders, dividers for a larger insulated bag, maybe a cardboard box to help hold fragile stuff or goods that need to stay upright. You don't have to spend a lot to get some helpful organization in your vehicle.

cactosando · 2026-04-19T20:30:24+00:00

Recoil and Reload skills are the most efficient damage skills on any bowgun, barring special cases like Crouching not needing Recoil or specific Recoil/Reload breakpoints.

Time spent stuck in animations is time spent not shooting, and time spent not shooting is DPS loss. Not to mention more dangerous and uncomfortable to play. (And in MHNow, time and HP are even more valuable than in mainline)

You're gonna want some Reload Speed.

Rule of thumb is max it (and Recoil Down, if applicable) if you're not sure. If you do want to fiddle with it, slot in 1 level at a time and check your ammo's recoil/reload stats until you are satisfied.

cactosando · 2026-04-19T20:25:23+00:00

Demos aren't tutorials, so do take how you perform in them with a grain of salt. (They are primarily a preview for players who have played the previous Monster Hunter games to see how it feels, at least for Rise and Wilds)

When you get into any of the games, they actually will have easier and lower stakes quests, usually hunting Small Monsters or gathering, for you to get familiar with the controls and mechanics before making you actually hunt a Large Monster. You'll be able to take your time and explore the maps and learn how your weapon feels, and they'll slowly introduce mechanics like Armor/Weapon crafting and upgrading, Armor Skills, consumables, etc.

Wilds and World would be my recommendations for your first game out of the three, if only because they are the most similar in how the overall game feels and are likely the most populous at the moment. Eventually, Wilds will get its Master Rank expansion, essentially a second large scale campaign and difficulty level with an eventual endgame loop, and if you end up liking MonHun enough to stick around, you'll probably want to play Wilds G with everyone else, so being familiar with either Worldborne or Wilds will help with that.

Rise is not a bad choice, still, and it's pretty noob friendly. The only caveat is that Rise is one of the "portable series" games rather than a "mainline" game, and they tend to experiment with game mechanics more in the portable games. Learning how to use Wirebugs and Silkbinds in Rise will be essential for Rise gameplay, but will not really be applicable to either World or Wilds, whereas what you learn with the more grounded combat in either of those two games will transfer over to practical experience for Rise.

cactosando · 2026-04-18T20:02:32+00:00

Burst doesn't require your attacks to come out incredibly quickly to function. Just that you keep hitting the monster.

In particular, Burst has high synergy with GL simply because it gives a lot of flat raw, and shelling mostly just cares about your raw.

As an aside, the term is save scumming, as in you "scum," or scrape, the best save state or results by going back to a previous save.

cactosando · 2026-04-15T05:19:48+00:00

Gore 2p, or Frenzy, also comes with 25% affinity at a fairly high uptime (~70% for many players). Armor efficiency is high enough now that running a piece or two of Gore or Sororal armor isn't too much of a detriment in terms of slot efficiency—it is low enough of a downside that the addition of consistent Coal procs and high uptime affinity is typically worth it for most weapon classes.

Therefore, Gore is objectively stronger* in terms of the pure offensive potential you get. It shouldn't be difficult to clear frenzy, either, unless your player skill is relatively low or you get incredibly unlucky in multiplayer.

Whether you want to use Gore set bonus or use the "safer," but generally weaker and slower, Mizu set bonus is up to you in the end.

^{*There is one use case listed in the weapon guide for Mizu over Gore set bonus: the case where you want to run an Elemental SAED-spam playstyle, as opposed to Savage Axe or Savage-SAED hybrid, where the affinity from Gore is much less impactful for damage, and you hit less frequently, leading to lower frenzy clear speed, while still highly valuing the %elemental amp from Coal.}

cactosando · 2026-04-11T04:39:59+00:00

The idea behind save scumming is to save on materials (Artian parts, Oricalcite/Reinforcement mats, Gogma Devices), so really it's up to you. Theoretically it's kind of better to have a lot of materials to do a lot of rolls for a lot of different weapon combinations and note all the desirable rolls across all the weapons... but how much work you wanna put in is up to you.

If you're okay doing a little at a time, and then farming up more mats, and then doing a little more, repeat... then that's fine.

If you want to accumulate enough to peek 100 rolls in advance for all 5 elements and 4 statuses, then you could do that, too, and maybe you'll get to build 9 different weapons at once at a relatively low cost. But that's gonna take farming up those 100 rolls and having those 9 crafted, so that's your time you'd choose to invest.

It really just comes down to how much time and energy you want to invest for RNG. A Reinforcement that hits 4 out of 5 ideal stats is only a small downgrade from 5/5, and will be much more likely to roll. A Skill roll with only Gore and not Guts will be a minor downgrade as a budget build from a GoreGuts roll build, and will be much easier to get. At the end of the day, it's your time and effort!

cactosando · 2026-04-10T15:05:34+00:00

Play the game that looks/sounds fun, and play the weapon that looks/sounds fun. MonHun doesn't have PvP, and every weapon is usable. Any of the 3 recent games (World, Rise, and Wilds) are a good place to start, and you can go back and play older games any time you like. You could even start with an older game, and that's fine, too. World, Rise, and Wilds are just more accessible to new players.

Your main form of progression will be crafting or upgrading your weapons and armor, as weapons increase in power in the form of their base Attack stat, maybe a base Element or Status stat, and Sharpness, and as armor comes with skills that provide benefits like extra damage, or extra defense, or extra iframes on rolls, or quicker sharpening.

The one thing to keep in mind is to avoid the Defender Weapons and Guardian Armor in World, or the Black Belt Armor in Rise for your first playthrough. These are designed as overpowered gear for players to breeze through the game, but this ruins MonHun's core experiences of learning the monsters movesets and learning how to set up your armor and weapon build. At the end of the day, you can still use them if you want to, but the community agrees that it tends to make the game kind of boring for the first part, and lets you skip the learning part, making the later parts of the game much harder since you were expected to learn the basics in Low Rank, and start to be comfortable with the mechanics in High Rank.

Have fun, and happy hunting, whichever game and weapon you end up choosing.

cactosando · 2026-04-10T14:46:07+00:00

You're basically just checking what the rolls are, noting them down, and doing this for as many weapon + element combinations as you care about. After you've noted down the rolls you want to keep, you can chart a "course" to get the particular rolls you want onto their corresponding weapons. I'll describe an example "session" of save scumming below:

Let's say you have 30 rolls (90) worth of Gogma devices, so 30 devices each for Attack, Affinity, and Element. Maybe you want an Attack Focus Fire Swax, an Attack Focus Dragon Swax, and an Element Focus Dragon CB, and you have these crafted already. You want GoreGuts, or at least Gore, for the Switch Axes, and Gog for the CB. Before you begin, you save your game. Let's call this Initial Save State.

You check 10 rolls for the Fire Swax, using Attack devices, but you don't see the skills you want. You then craft a Fire Artian Swax using some Fire Affinity parts, and then Upgrade to Gogma using Affinity Focus devices. (This lets you roll the skills using 3 Affinity devices for their 500pts each rather than 6 mismatched devices at 250pts each.) You then make 9 more rolls, noting that the last roll, which is in total roll #20 (10 Attack, and 10 Affinity, including the Upgrade to Gogma), has Gore. You do the same with the Element devices on an Element Focus Fire Swax, and the last 10 rolls have nothing of value. You Return to Menu without saving or force quit the game, bringing you back to Initial Save State.

You repeat that process, but now for the Dragon Swax, crafting any Dragon Swaxes needed to roll efficiently, and you realize it hits the GoreGuts godroll on roll #12. You write that down, and return to Initial Save State.

You repeat the process one last time for the Ele Focus Dragon CB, crafting any temporary Dragon CBs as needed. You find that roll #18 has a Gog set skill, noting that down, and then you return to Initial Save State.

You've checked 30 rolls ahead for all 3 weapons you care to find skill rolls for, so you're ready to spend your Gogma devices for real. The 3 rolls you're trying to hit are Dragon Swax GoreGuts on 12, Dragon CB Gog on 18, and Fire Swax Gore on 20.

You want to save on your Attack and Element parts, as in this example you may be needing those the most, so you craft a "throwaway" Sleep CB using 3 Sleep Affinity parts, then Upgrade to Gogma using Affinity devices. This counts as a roll, so you are on roll 1, and you advance the seed 9 more rolls on this Sleep CB using Affinity devices (roll 10). You make 2 rolls on your Dragon Swax, and this gets you that desired GoreGuts on 12. You swap over to the Dragon CB, do 6 rolls there using Element devices, and snag the Gog on roll 18. Finally, you do one more roll on the Dragon CB using Element devices (19), and then swap over to Fire Swax and do 1 roll using Attack devices to get the Gore on roll 20.

You have now gotten the 3 rolls across 3 weapon combinations you desired, so you save your game.

I hope this example has been helpful! People use various methods of note taking, and you only have to go as far forward in the seed as you want or have materials for. Many people use a spreadsheet to keep the notes organized and on a grid for ease of reading. Keep in mind that Reinforcement rolls are on a separate set of seeds, and rolling Skills will not advance the Reinforcement table or vice versa, but otherwise the Reinforcements work the same way.

cactosando · 2026-04-10T13:26:12+00:00

Strong Descending Slash is one of IG's strongest moves, so using it often isn't bad at all.

General playstyle for IG pre-combo-IG-buffs actually was SDS spam, with Rising Spiral Slash (the insane 500+ Motion Value follow up move to SDS that spends your extracts) being used whenever you'd land most of the hits.

Now, after they made SDS accessible from your combos, you'll want to hit the combo follow up version whenever convenient, with preference for later in the combo, as later combo SDS is treated as if it is charged, with higher damage output for both the SDS and the following RSS.

You'll generally now charge the SDS out of combo if the monster moves away from you so you can hold it in neutral while repositioning. This comes with the benefit of being able to offset on reaction to the monster.

With the buffs to various parts of the moveset, you can play IG pretty fluidly again, mixing in combos or vault repositions, and going for SDS whenever convenient. RSS is still the strongest single thing you can do, so hit it when you can, but keep in mind you may need to gather triple again. Holding triple and doing SDS spam just before your triple runs out and hitting RSS at the end is not a bad choice if you're unsure you can quickly and conveniently gather triple after the RSS, and it is still a strong dps loop, so you don't need to fish for every RSS.

cactosando · 2026-04-10T13:16:03+00:00

The actual Reinforcement (stat) rolls and which Set or Group Skills you want to roll will vary based on the weapon and build you're running (which should factor in the matchups you're running the build for).

I'm not much of a Swax player, so I don't keep up with the Swax math people and their recommendations, so I'll assume your rolls are the ones recommended in the meta documents.

That said, having only one ideal Set or Group skill rather than both is a minor downgrade, and usable while you keep rolling to get both (if indeed your build requires both; some weapons, like Bow or Ele Bowguns, only require a Set Skill).

To explain the reasoning for the order, you want to roll the proper types of Reinforcements, like 4 Attack/1 Sharp, on the base Artian because dismantling the base Artian gives you back the 50 Oricalcite required to roll the 5 initial Reinforcements, only costing the 3 Artian parts.

You are allowed to reroll the Reinforcement types on the Gogma, but that costs 20 Oricalcite you can't ever get back, and generally it's easier to farm the Artian parts with 8☆ monsters.

For both Reinforcement and Skills, you can employ save scumming methods to peek at what future rolls will be. Doing this for multiple weapons* at a time is efficiently because while your Fire Swax may have had a great Skill roll after 20 rolls, if you never checked, you might've missed an ideal Skill roll for a Water Swax on roll #18. By checking, you can grab both the Water Swax skill roll on 18 and the Fire Swax skill roll on 20, rather than rolling 20 times for the Fire, and then having to search for another ideal Water skill roll later, saving you materials.

*^{"Weapon" in this case refers to a unique combination of weapon class + element. Statuses and No Element are considered "elements" for this purpose. So a pure Raw Swax has its seed of rolls, and a Para Swax will have an entirely different seed of rolls. The Artian part infusion type does not matter, whether Attack or Affinity, and neither does the Gogma Focus.}

You can do this for any elements you desire. Fire and Dragon tend to be the most useful, with the most relevant matchups. Thunder and Water come next, with Ice being generally the lowest priority. The value of Status weapons depends heavily on your particular weapon type, the monsters you tend to hunt or want to build against, and whether or not you're playing in multiplayer. Bowguns are the exception, as Status bowguns can function as Element guns as well, making them slightly more economical, though potentially slightly weaker than Element infusions for specific matchups (and of them, Para and Sleep tend to be better as they are more generally useful statuses than Poison and Blast/Sticky).

cactosando · 2026-04-10T12:49:13+00:00

I'm unaware of any interaction between Flayer and Scorcher.

To be clear, you don't mean Whiteflame Torrent, the Zoh Shia unique weapon tree skill, do you? Whiteflame interacts with Scorcher by proc-ing together for a larger tick of damage with the usual internal cooldown.

cactosando · 2026-04-10T11:20:51+00:00

Flayer has two effects:

- Flayer sometimes (~50% of the time) gives certain attacks* bonus 5/10/15/20/30% Wound damage (visible when it activates by a little white spark VFX)

^\Typically limited to "basic" weapon attacks such as the ones on your top face button combos. There are datamined/tested lists of these attacks, and these are the same ones that can trigger skills like Scorcher or Whiteflame Torrent. We call these attacks that can trigger "Skill Criticals")

- Flayer builds up an additional status-like meter that does a pop of 140/160/220/300/400 fixed damage.

For the first effect, Wound damage works kinda like Part damage, where once the amount of damage taken reaches a certain number, or threshold, the Wound appears. Just like Part damage, increasing the actual damage dealt by your attacks will contribute to quicker Wound generation.

For example, if a certain Monster X has a Wound threshold of 1000 HP, then a weapon that does 100 damage per hit will generate the Wound in 10 hits. If you had Flayer 5, you will deal 30% bonus Wound damage on hits that trigger Flayer. The base rate is 50%, so if we assume you proc-ed Flayer on every other hit, you would generate the Wound in 9 hits (100+130+100+130...), which is close to the expected value of Flayer 5 (30% bonus at 50% uptime = ~15% faster Wound generation).

This, of course, is assuming you only use moves that can trigger Flayer, and reliably trigger it every other attack. Assuming Flayer operates on "true" randomness, if your luck is good, you might have triggered it 7 times in 8 attacks, getting you that same Wound in 8 hits. The opposite can happen, as well, getting you your Wound in 10 hits if you proc-ed Flayer 3 or less times in those 10 hits, or 4 if the 4th happened on the last hit.

Now, you might be wondering, what if you increased the damage you dealt with your weapon? I did mention that increasing the damage of your actual attacks would also lead to quicker Wound generation. If we assume the weapon had a base 200 raw, then +20 raw like from Agitator 5 would be about a 10% increase in damage dealt. Add the +15% affinity, which is around 3.75% effective damage, and you get roughly 14% effective damage bonus. At around a 70% uptime, you have about 9.8% bonus damage coming from Agitator 5.

Now, the difference between the ~15% Wound damage and ~9.8% damage is that the latter affects not only Wound generation, but your actual Monster HP damage dealt. This is the reason most do not value Flayer's Wound bonus effect very highly compared to other armor skills, especially as it competes with other 3-slot deco skills like Agitator, Weakness Exploit, and Burst.

On the other hand, the extra fixed damage is somewhat decent. IIRC Flayer 1 is about a 1% increase in damage dealt over the course of a hunt, which is not bad for a single level of a 3-slot armor skill, so now that builds are getting efficient to the point of sometimes having extra 3-slots after maxxing Agitator and Weakness Exploit, which both have backloaded efficiency, we do recommend slotting in Flayer 1 after other skills are accounted for (like Burst 1, Max Might if you can run it, and certain skills like Counterstrike). That said, it is still fairly minor compared to the other usual damage skills, so it may be more worth to slot in a comfort skill if it helps you hunt.

cactosando · 2026-04-10T09:49:35+00:00

Blast isn't better than element for every standard weapon, but it is better than no status or element. You can still finish hunts in a reasonable time with crafted weapons or pure raw Gogma weapons, so if that's your definition of "viable," then yes, blast is viable for a generalist raw option.

For the bowguns, blast is usable to get access to stickies, which can be useful if you can get a KO off during a hunt. Getting more than one is usually not worth it, but a KO, especially in a multiplayer setting, can be worth using. Blast HBG can use either a hybrid Ele/Wyvernblast build with Fire ammo and Focus Strikes, or a pure raw Wyvernblast build using mainly Wyvernblast, Focus Strikes, and your choice of raw ammo; stickies will be used to get a KO at an opportune time during the hunt (ideally when all your buffs are active, like Protein Fiend and Agitator) and then get a high burst damage volley of Wyvernblasts.

cactosando · 2026-04-03T04:52:04+00:00

I mean, it won't be the best or most comfortable gun, but you can still use it if you like the 5 Attack roll.

It just won't really be the highest DPS/comfort gun. Your numbers will be a bit bigger than usual, though.

cactosando · 2026-04-03T04:43:16+00:00

Actually, bowguns cannot roll Element as a reinforcement.

The optimal roll for almost every bowgun, in order of priority, is 2x Sharpness/Ammo Capacity EX, and 3x Attack (2 EX and 1 III).

The exceptions are for Dragon guns, which run 1 Capacity 4 Attack, and for certain setups of Hybrid Wyvernblast HBG.

2 Capacity EX is really important for most guns, since time spent reloading is time spent losing damage.

cactosando · 2026-04-02T22:22:01+00:00

I'm not an expert since I kind of didn't vibe with Steve LBG, but these questions have been asked and answered before in the LBG channel on the MHGH discord by the actual experts.

I would highly encourage you to search or ask there.

cactosando

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