13 Things I wish I knew when I first started playing Monster Hunter World

You’re new to Monster Hunter? maybe you’ve never played a monster hunter game before maybe you want to try it out? you’re actively trying it out and you have no clue what’s going on, so you’re like me! today I have a short list of seven things that I wish I would have known going into Monster Hunter world.

Always upgrade when leveling. Don’t hoard items.

Number one, always be upgrading, with the way materials work in Monster Hunter there is no reason to hoard early game materials, you will out level them somewhat quickly. If you have the ability to make a new armor piece or you really want to try something new, do it!

Those old materials will become useless the higher you go in level unless you really want to make some low-level armor for some reason, the only reason to keep any old materials is for weapon crafting if you need to start from the bottom but even then, you’ll be able to farm those materials very easily.

The same goes for the armor upgrade spheres, you will get better quality upgrade spheres as time goes on, use the ones that you get, the gearing issue usually becomes a problem when you hit the first wall of the game which is a certain monster that will kick your ass if you’re not ready for it.

My biggest suggestion for the final monsters is to make sure that you are decked out as much as you can be, weapons and armor at the highest tier with the highest upgrades possible, don’t worry about skills in the early game too much, once you start hitting four star and five star stuff is when they’ll become more available.

There is no overall “best” armor set. All armor comes with a weakness. Accept weakness.

Number two relates to the armor situation except for weakness, there are not many sets at all that are just good for everything, you need to accept that certain stats of yours are going to be weak and that’s okay, just make sure that your weaknesses are not the monsters strengths.

You will need to build multiple armor sets and many armor sets are designed to be used against the very monster that it is named for.

Start simple

Number three, starting simple is fine you do not need to dive headfirst into using more advanced weaponry like the “charge blade” for example, in fact, I would encourage using simpler weapons first to get a better feel for how combat works in the game and then move towards something more difficult.

Learning the flow of combat is a much more valuable piece of information when first starting out, I think I would have enjoyed the early game much more had I not been so arrogant wanting to stick it out with the charged blade, there’s nothing wrong with that but if I could go back I’d probably start with something a little bit easier, dual blades the longsword sword and shield, start with the basics.

Bounties are your friend

Number four, bounties bounties bounties! as soon as you get the ability to unlock bounties, you should have all six slots active with them at all times, they can be completed in the background while you are progressing or on expeditions or doing other missions and they give those precious armor sphere upgrades.

As long as you constantly keep up those bounties you will be swimming in upgrade Spears, there is no reason not to keep them constantly rolling.

Capturing > Killing (Unless you can’t capture.)

Number five, capturing is better than killing, you may want to unleash vengeance upon the monsters that have wronged you and that’s fine especially because certain beasts cannot be captured namely elder dragons but the ones that you can capture should be captured because they give more materials at the end.

This also allows you to fight those monsters that you capture in the arena, not to mention that capturing will end the fight immediately versus having to go through another stage of fighting which for certain beasts can be somewhat of a pain, especially if they enrage easily.

The biggest tell to seeing if something can be captured is if it is limping, if it is, your next move should be a capture attempt, if the monster is sleeping that’s also usually a good tell along with its pulse meter being almost a flatline, if it has a skull on its head in your mini-map in the bottom left that is also a sign that it is weak.

To capture a monster you need to trap it with a shock or pitfall trap and then hit it with two train
bombs, it’ll cause some extra materials to keep up with traps and tranq bombs not to mention multiple hunts forgetting that you don’t have any traps since you can only hold one of each, but it’ll save you time and get you more materials as long as you’re diligent which brings us to tip number six.

Be diligent about your consumables

Despite the fact that you can restock at a campsite, you should always make sure your pack is full of consumables before every hunt, get into a habit of checking your stash whenever possible to make sure that you have potions, mega potions, buffs, traps and whatever else is going to help you, keep your inventory clear of flora, mushrooms etc.

I can’t tell you how many times I went into a hunt with a full inventory and had to do the run back to the campsite to unload my stuff, you’re able to restock your inventory from your stash by just hitting a couple of buttons, so get in the habit of doing that, stay organized.

Who has the poop gun?

Finally, number seven, bring dung pods to everything, dung pods allow you to literally throw poop at other monsters making them or at least encouraging them to leave the area, nothing will ruin a hunt faster than another monster dropping in causing you to have to wait or run away, whip out that dung pod throw some poop at it and hopefully that monsters gonna leave.

This becomes especially handy later in the game when dealing with the b-52 if you don’t know what the b-52 is, if you’re not there yet you’ll know what I mean, when you get there trust me, pick up dung whenever possible because it will come in handy along with other slingers like flash pots.

You should always try to bring flash pods whenever fighting flying enemies, a list of more minor things include:

Number 8, Scout flies do not work in combat so don’t frantically look around for them while you’re in combat.

Number 9, talk to everyone who has an exclamation point on their head to get their quest.

Number 10, use fast travel to travel to camps to traverse long distances easily.

Number 11, the ecological research guy is right here, buy all of these books and you do need to talk to him eventually.

Number 12, don’t forget to eat before each hunt to get buffs.

number 13, always save your game, the game does not autosave certain things always be saving.

Those are 13 things that I wish I knew when I first started playing or rather things I would have liked to have known had I not been playing with friends.

Addition: Monster Hunter veteran (10+ years) from Youtube says:

My main tips would be:

1) Ignore armor upgrades in Low Rank completely. You’re very likely to fight a monster in your next story mission that will grant you armor with higher stats so it’s a waste of armor spheres. Just make new armor. I ran with LR gear until late HR (6star) and then I made an HR set, mainly focusing on the defense only. (LR Armor ~100 DEF to ~220 DEF HR armor) And after encountering my first elder dragon I started to worry about skills and building proper endgame sets. This is where I used my armor spheres.

2) Longsword, hammer, dual blades, and lance are great beginner weapons. And if you’re having a hard time I can’t praise the lance enough, the shield allows you to block the heaviest of attacks and it’s a lifesaver. Easy to pick up but hard to master. Whenever I’m getting my ass whopped I bring out the lance.

3) Start cultivating honey at the botanist as soon as possible, you can never have too much honey. Mainly used to upgrade your potions to Mega potions. You can buy your potions in the tradeyard.

4) Some monsters are easier to do SOLO – When entering multiplayer the monster gains double the HP, it’s doubled weather you’re two, three or four players. For me, monsters like Bazelgeus and Kirin is much easier to solo than with a group of strangers.

5) Find a weapon you like and upgrade it, raw (none elemental) is the best way to go so you can use it against anything. In the beginning, you will be low on material and cash, so making a weapon of each element isn’t really an option, so just stay with your favorite weapon and upgrade it along the way. I hope this was helpful!