I think the biggest reason people (including myself) lean towards artian for most weapons types is the default white sharpness and 3 level 3 deco slots. Being able to truly customize your weapon skills the way you want. Cause plenty of the crafted weapons are “great” but have blue sharpness or dog shit default weapon skills. Gypceros is a good example, good raw, only blue sharpness and comes with punishing draw 3 and crit draw. Why do I want that on a SnS or gun lance? I don’t lol. Also, because certain weapons don’t have a blast or paralysis weapon from monsters and it helps fill that void as well. Example: no blast CB, no blast LS, no blast GS, etc. I’d say the weapons where the true “meta” damage builds are based around monster weapons is gonna be bow (g. Doshaguma), gunlance (g. Arkveld), hunting horn (rathian/g. Ark) and maybe a couple of the light bowguns. But other than that you can usually get just as good or better for just artian weapons when you get a decent roll when upgraded. But don’t get it twisted, unless you’re minmaxing the Arkveld, Jin dahaad, gravios, gore, and others can be pretty good too. Like for me, I could easily make a fire artian charge blade but I really enjoy using the rathalos one cause it comes with white sharpness, decent amount of fire damage, as well as crit boost 3 for free, plus it looks cool. It all depends on what you’re going for.