Summary
- The Dragon element is generally useful against late-game monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds.
- Players should stick to raw damage if not targeting elemental weaknesses.
- The Water element is the least useful due to fewer monsters being weak to it.
If there's one thing Monster Hunter is known for, it's giving players a lot of options when it comes to weapon choices. Monster Hunter Wilds features 14 weapon categories, each giving players an entirely different set of attack and defense options. Even though most players will stick with a couple of main weapon types throughout the game, there's still a vast variety of weapons to craft even within a category.
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As well as raw physical damage, weapons can also have one of five elemental damage types or inflict non-elemental status effects. That allows players to create the exact weapons they need for a specific hunt, but it can be an overwhelming list of options for new players to browse through. Some elements are more effective for certain monsters, and some elements are more generally useful than others. When it comes to hunters, elements are also capable of inflicting associated status effects called elemental blights when players take enough damage with the same element, but this doesn't apply to monsters. For new players who want some advice on where to direct their weapon crafting, these are the best elements to prioritize in Monster Hunter Wilds.
1 Dragon
Dragon Killing Damage
- Monster Weaknesses Include: G. Arkveld, G. Doshaguma, Rathalos, Rathian
If players want to tally up the total number of monsters with weaknesses to each individual element, Thunder actually comes out with the most. But since Dragon element weaknesses are clustered among the later game monsters, and these are the ones that players will hunt most often in High Rank, Dragon might be the most generally useful element if players want to focus on just one.
There's not much advantage to sticking with a single element in Monster Hunter Wilds, though. If players don't want to match elements to monster weaknesses, then they're often better off sticking to raw damage or targeting a status effect instead. This is partly due to how elemental damage calculation actually works in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Elemental weapon damage is shown as a number next to raw damage on a weapon, but the actual damage an element adds is about 10% (unadjusted) of the number shown. So, elemental damage of 300 will add about 30 points of damage to the weapon's flat damage number.
However, that added number is significantly decreased if the monster is resistant, potentially down to 0. This means that if players are using one element, they'll be at a disadvantage against resistant monsters. This number is also multiplied for weaknesses, though, which is why matching elements to weaknesses can be a helpful approach.
2 Thunder
Electric Attacks
- Monster Weaknesses Include: Gore Magala, Yian Kut-Ku, Uth Duna, Blangonga
Next to Dragon, Thunder is one of the most generally useful elemental damage types in Monster Hunter Wilds. 13 of Wilds' monsters have a Thunder weakness, so it's a useful element to use at various points in the game's story campaign and beyond.
Players who want to focus on this type of element damage will generally get the most out of fast weapons like the dual blades or element-focused weapons like the insect glaive and bowguns.
3 Ice
Chilling Strikes
- Monster Weaknesses Include: Gravios, G. Fulgur Anjanath, Xu Wu, Ajarakan
With monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds unable to suffer elemental blights, some of the variety feels lacking from elemental effects. Since damage is a flat addition with no additional effects, ice damage or thunder damage etc. Doesn't have much differentiation.
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The differentiation for players comes from the visual effects of the weapon and the different monster weaknesses they can target with the damage. On that front, Ice damage has as many total monster weaknesses as Dragon (10). As such, it can be seen as a moderately useful element.
4 Fire
Burning Heat
- Monster Weaknesses Include: Lala Barina, Congalala, Nerscylla, Hirabami
Fire damage is equally useful as Ice damage, though mostly against a completely different group of monsters. There are 10 total monsters with a fire weakness currently in Wilds, putting this element at roughly the same level as the others if used generally.
The majority of late-game (7 and 8 star) hunts will focus on monsters with Dragon or Thunder weaknesses, though. As such, Fire and Ice both become less generally useful at this point in Monster Hunter Wilds.
5 Water
Killer Flow
- Monster Weaknesses Include: Quematrice, Rompopolo, Rey Dau, Nu Udra
With the current roster of monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds, Water-type elemental damage drew the short straw for weaknesses, with only 9 total monsters having a Water weakness in the game. That means that Water is the least generally useful of the five available elements. Still, that doesn't mean that Water element damage is totally useless; targeting a water weakness is still effective.
It's a simple fact with Monster Hunter Wilds that elemental damage is best used as something to aid hunters with a bit of monster knowledge, giving them an element to target in order to increase efficiency on specific hunts. With the reduced levels of grind compared to previous Monster Hunter games, it's not too difficult to assemble viable weapons of multiple elemental types. For those who want to focus on elemental damage, that's the best way to go.
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The unbridled force of nature runs wild and relentless, with environments transforming drastically from one moment to the next. This is a story of monsters and humans and their struggles to live in harmony in a world of duality.
Fulfill your duty as a Hunter by tracking and defeating powerful monsters and forging strong new weapons and armor from the materials you harvest from your hunt as you uncover the connection between the people of the Forbidden Lands and the locales they inhabit.
The ultimate hunting experience awaits you in Monster Hunter Wilds.
