Summary
Many players are returning toMonster Hunter Wildsthanks to the game’s first title update, while plenty of players are still working their way through the game or even jumping in for the first time. For new and returning players alike,Monster Hunter Wildshas a wealth of weapons, armor, and equipment to explore.
A core part of both weapons and armor inMonster Hunter Wildsis the skill system. This allows players to mix and match complementary skills across theirarmor piecesand weapons to achieve the best mix of offense, defense, and utility for their character. With nearly 150 different skills in the game, there’s a lot for players to experiment with.
Not every skill works with every weapon, though. Some skills are highly specific in their use, while others have more general beneficial effects. When it comes to Bows, players are generally looking for skills that will help them maintain damage output from a distance, manage stamina, and improve the bow’s many charged attacks. With that in mind, these are the best skills players can use with Bows inMonster Hunter Wilds.
9Coating Functionality
Status On Demand
This isn’t one skill but many potential skills, depending on the specific coating players want to use. The specificskill decorationwill be named after its status effect, e.g., Poisoncoat jewel, Sleepcoat jewel, etc. Using these decorations allows Bow players to apply coatings that don’t come with the weapon by default. Players may choose to use these decorations with an Artian weapon with no inherent status effect, for example. This can be a potent ability, but it’s only useful situationally and requires some pre-knowledge of monster status vulnerabilities to be effective.
8Partbreaker
Wound Breaking Damage Boost
Partbreaker can be a highly effective skill combined with the Bow. Players get more damage when hitting specific monster parts, which is relatively easy to do with the bow’s targeting. The skill also gives a huge damage boost, up to 30%, when destroying a wound with a focus strike. Since the bow’s focus strike automatically locks on to wounds on a monster, this is a powerful extra damage boost, and players get to follow up with Dragon Piercer when they break a wound, too.
7Charge Master
Charge Attack Buff
For bow users who want to focus onelement damageor status damage, Charge Master is an essential skill. This skill increases the amount of damage players get from elements and the amount of status effect buildup they get with each hit from a charged attack. This skill works well when combined with status coatings, making the Bow a very reliable weapon for inflicting status effects overall.
Coating Booster
Tetrad Shot isn’t the easiest skill to understand for the Bow, but it’s another one that’s highly effective for players who want to focus on status buildup. When the player uses a coating, this skill boosts the affinity of every shot after the fourth, making the last six of the ten shots much more likely to be critical hits. This, plus the damage boost to shots four and six, makes this a great skill forgetting the most damageand status buildup out of your coatings. It’s only useful if the player is making use of coatings, though.
5Adrenaline Rush
Perfect Dodge Damage Buff
The Bow consumes a lot of stamina when players are trying to pull off consecutive attacks and charge attacks, so anything that helps players stay on top of theirstamina managementcan be useful. Bow users get a big stamina recovery burst when they perform a perfect dodge, and with Adrenaline Rush, that comes along with a boost to attack power, too. Adrenaline Rush gives +10 attack at its first level and up to +30 if players have five levels of the skill. That’s a big attack boost for a weapon that wants players to pull off well-timed dodges anyway.
4Stamina Surge
Faster Recovery
Draining the stamina bar is easy as a Bow user when trying to deal consistent damage to a monster. Having Stamina Surge as a skill reduces Bow player’s downtime by giving an increase to the rate at which stamina recovers. The initial bonus is only 10% recovery speed, but at three levels in the skill, that increases to 50% faster stamina recovery. This is plenty for Bow users to get their full stamina bar back as they reposition between shots.
3Focus
Faster Charging
Focus isa skill that’s useful for multiple weapons. Unlike many weapons that want this skill for its boost to gauge fill rate, the Bow benefits more from the increased charged rate for charge attacks. For the player, this means that charge attacks reach their maximum charge faster, increasing their overall DPS output in a fight as they can pull off more attacks at a faster rate. The trick arrow gauge also benefits from this skill, meaning that players will be able to use more tracers and coatings, but it’s less significant than the charge rate boost.
2Special Ammo Boost
Special Shot Buff
The Special Ammo Boost skill is one that only Bow users and Bowgun users can benefit from, but it’s highly effective for both. For Bows, this skill boosts the attack power of the special attacks, Thousand Dragons, Dragon Piercer, and Tracer. It’s a significant damage boost with both levels of the skill, and Bow players will find themselves naturally using these moves as part of their rotations anyway, meaning this skill just ends upincreasing overall damage outputwithout any extra effort from the player.
1Ballistics
Ideal Range Increase
Ideal range is a concept that Bow and Bowgun players need to get used to and develop a feel for in Monster Hunter Wilds. Ranged players will quickly notice that their arrows don’t always do the same amount of damage to a monster. Part of that is to do with ideal range. If a player is too close to a monster - or too far from a monster - they’re essentially getting a penalty to their ranged damage. Ballistics increases this ideal distance window, so it’s easier for Bow players to maintain the ideal range from a monster. This is an essential skill for the bow, as moremobile monsterscan make maintaining an ideal distance a difficult task without it.
