A friend of mine claimed the Tigrex and Seregios bows are great. I’m a skeptical guy by nature and this was against everything I knew about bows from MHFUnite, so I decided to look up his claims and thought I’d might as well create a guide out of it.
There will be a shit-ton of raw data at first. You have been warned!
First off we have the motion values which are integral to understanding bow damage.
As you probably know you unleash multiple arrows at a time when firing a bow and each arrow deals separate damage. This also means that each separate arrow deals its own elemental damage. As for the exact amount of damage, well here you go!
(The numbers represent how clumped together the hits are and the optimal range. Rapid 5 has a huge window for optimal damage while Pierce 5 wants to stand pretty far away and the damage is clumped up to the first one or two areas. Spread 5 wants to be a bit further away than Spread 3 but deals a lot more damage and the arrows are more clumped up(?).)
Rapid
- LV1: 12 / 12 / 12 / (none)
- LV2: 12+4 / 12+4 / 12+4 / (none)
- LV3: 12+4+3 / 12+4+3 / 12+4+3 / 12+4+3+2
- LV4: (none) / 12+4+3+2 / 12+4+3+2 / 12+4+3+2
- LV5: 12+4+3+3 / 12+4+3+3 / 12+4+3+3 / 12+4+3+3
Pierce
- LV1: 6×3, 6×3, (none), (none)
- LV2: 6×4, 6×4, (none), (none)
- LV3: 6×5, 6×5, 6×5, 6×5
- LV4: (none), (none), 6×5, 6×5
- LV5: (none), (none), (none), 6×5
Spread
- LV1: 4+5+4 / 4+5+4 / (none) / (none)
- LV2: 5+6+5 / 5+6+5 / 5+6+5 5+6+5
- LV3: 4+5+5+4 / 4+5+5+4 / 4+5+5+4 / 4+5+5+4
- LV4: (none) / 4+5+6+5+4 / 4+5+6+5+4 / 4+5+6+5+4
- LV5: (none) / (none) / 5+5+6+5+5 / 5+5+6+5+5 /
Arc Shots
- Focus type: 7×5
- Wide type: 7×5
- Blast type: 6+35
Melee
- Bow hit 1 – 10 (13 with close coating)
- Bow hit 2 – 13 (17 with close coating)
Next we have charge levels. If you unleash the arrow immediately that’s charge lvl 1. If you instead hold the attack button it’ll flash after a very short while. Each flash makes the arrow deal more damage. Charge lvl 3 is generally the highest but with the Loading skill or certain bows you can reach charge lvl 4.
Charge Level Modifications
Level Attack Element Poison Paralysis/Sleep
Lvl.1 0.4 0.7 0.5 0.5
Lvl.2 1.0 0.85 1.0 1.0
Lvl.3 1.5 1.0 1.5 1.3
Lvl.4 1.7 1.125 1.5 1.3
As you can see, in most cases charge lvl 3 is perfectly fine. Loading is a really expensive skill and you need Fast Charge as well to make it work optimally as it takes longer to charge from 2 to 3 than from 3 to 4.
The final thing you should know is that arrows deal a varying amount of damage depending on how far you are from the monster.
- Way too close/too far ~ 70%
- Too close/too far – 100%
- Optimal distance – 150%
As far as I know the optimal distance only increases your physical damage. This still makes a huge difference in the long run. When you hit a monster at optimal distance there will be a large yellow flash. You should of course experiment to find the exact range for yourself as well as practice practice practice…
Anyway, the optimal distances are:
- Spread: 0.5-2 backhops
- Rapid: 2-3.5 backhops
- Pierce: 3.5-6 backhops
The optimal distance for Pierce shots increases with levels, so with Pierce level 5 you can stand pretty fucking far away and still deal optimal damage.
Unlike all other multipliers, distance is not taken into account when firing arc shots.
Power Shots
Power Shots are used by pressing the alternate fire button after unleashing a normal shot. It fires a second set of arrows at one charge level higher. It cannot however fire anything higher than what your bow has. It also costs a lot of stamina to use.
The upsides should be obvious. If you have a ton of stamina (like say unlimited thanks to Dash Juices) you can almost double your damage output!
Jesus fucking fuck! You can almost double your damage output!
I played a ton of bow back in MHFUnite when we didn’t have any fancy arc shots or power shots so I haven’t thought too hard about it. But that’s bloody insane!
I guess come g-rank your bow must have Power Shot for it to be worth using. You don’t even need Fast Charge when you have Loading as you can just fire lvl 3 charges instead and Power Shot lvl 4 charges.
Coatings and status effects
Moving on to something less exciting and only slightly less relevant we have all the coatings, the thing that makes bows great for multiplayer.
Power coatings – Max 50 – Increases your physical damage by 50%. Power coatings are ridiculously important due to how damage works in monster hunter. Optimal distance and charge level stacks with power coatings for 337% physical damage. Yes, you do more than twice the physical damage if you apply power coatings and shoot from the right distance compared to just spamming lvl 3 shots. Add power shots and you do another 382% physical damage if you have Loading. That’s 719% physical damage instead of 150%.
Close-Range coatings – Max 20 – Increases physical damage by 20% and melee damage by 50%. It also extends the optimal distance so that it’s the furthest or closer. The Seregios bows boosts close range coatings so that it increases physical damage by 50%.
Paint coatings – Max 99 – Applies paint to the monster. Personally I prefer just throwing a paint ball as you need to apply a new coating mid-combat after painting otherwise.
There’s also Poison, Paralysis, Sleep, Blast and Exhaust coatings – Max 20 each – They all deal their respective status effects. The downside is that it negates the bows element if any.
Bows with Coating Boosts increases the amount of status effect applied by 50%.
Bows deal (roughly) the following amount of status effect:
O===========O=============O=============O=============O | Shot Type | Rapid | Scatter | Pierce | O===========O=============O=============O=============O | Shot Lv 1 | 13 x 1 hit | 5 x 3 hits | 5 x 3 hits | |-----------+-------------+-------------+-------------| | Shot Lv 2 | 7 x 2 hits | 6 x 3 hits | 4 x 4 hits | |-----------+-------------+-------------+-------------| | Shot Lv 3 | 5 x 3 hits | 4 x 5 hits | 4 x 5 hits | |-----------+-------------+-------------+-------------| | Shot Lv 4 | 4 x 4 hits | 4 x 5 hits | 4 x 5 hits | |-----------+-------------+-------------+-------------| | Shot Lv 5 | 4 x 4 hits | 4 x 5 hits | 4 x 5 hits | o-----------o-------------o-------------o-------------o
I’m saying roughly because it’s from an earlier game but bow damage hasn’t changed much so it’s probably very close.
And for your comfort I’m reposting this:
Charge Level Modifications
Level Attack Element Poison Paralysis/Sleep
Lvl.1 0.4 0.7 0.5 0.5
Lvl.2 1.0 0.85 1.0 1.0
Lvl.3 1.5 1.0 1.5 1.3
Lvl.4 1.7 1.125 1.5 1.3
So for example a Charge 3 Rapid 4 shot applies 24 Poison per shot, if it’s boosted it deals 36 Poison per hit which is really good. As far as I know coatings apply the status with every hit, not every third hit.
I suspect Blast gets the same modifier as Poison while Exhaust gets the same as Sleep and Paralysis. It’s just a hunch, feel free to correct me.
So Pierce is generally the best at applying status effects, it’s also the best for multiplayer as the monster is often attacking other players which again means that Pierce is best for multiplayer as Paralysis is only interesting with more players.
Also remember that Poison deals damage while the monster is poisoned so you might as well use all the coatings as this extra damage is most likely higher than the amount it takes to poison the monster a second time.
And I think that’s it for raw data, but what does all this mean?
(Another data-dump incoming, if you don’t care about seeing me play with the calculator, skip ahead.)
Let’s say you’re fighting Tigrex. He takes 55% shot and 20% lightning damage to his head.
With Kama Sedition you do 384 x 0.22 x 1.075 x 0.55 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 1.2 = 140 damage, double that if you use Power Shot.
Archbeast Paragon instead does 360 x 0.3 x 0.4 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 1.2 = 121 damage plus 180 x 0.20 x 5 / 10 = 18 thunder damage, so 139 damage.
(It would deal even more damage if it only hits the head but it’s impossible to check this)
Wide Weblivion does 312 x 1.125 x 0.26 x 0.4 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 1.2 = 102 damage plus 170 x 0.20 x 5 = 17 thunder damage for roughly 119 total, double with Power Shot. If you have Wide Up you deal 132 physical with 17 thunder for 149 damage.
(I’m using Loading for all the weapons here and assumes you’ve unlocked Weblivions thunder element)
So which is he best one?
The fancy thing about Archbeast Paragon is that you don’t need Loading nor Dash Juices to make it work and it lets you deal damage from further away so I’d say it’s the best for multiplayer. And Tigrex takes most thunder damage in his back which is easy to hit with Pierce if you can’t hit his head.
Kama Sedition is better for soloing, especially if you bring Dash Juices or similar.
There’s also Sacred Bow and Oppressor’s Wing if you like coatings (like I do).
Let’s take another example, Black Gravios, whom elemental bowing used to be perfect against.
We’ll do Kama Sedition again. 384 x 0.22 x 1.075 x 0.3 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 1.2 = 76 damage. Once you break his belly you do almost twice that. Also Power Shot.
Great Purple Emperor also has Power Shot and Pierce 5 at Charge lvl 4. The fancy thing about Pierce shots is that it goes through his hide and into his unprotected belly. So 312 x 0.3 x 1.025 x 0.4 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 1.2 = 107 damage plus 230 x 0.40 x 5 / 10 = 46 for 153 total damage. And you can do Power Shots.
We can also, for fun do Enraged Dalamadur. 372 x 0.3 x 0.4 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 1.2 = 125 damage plus 170 x 5 x 1.5 / 3 / 10 = 42 Blight on average. You need 3 hits for a Blast which deals 200 damage so that’s 70 extra damage per hit, but this increases by 45 per Blast which is 1 more attack each time. So 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and so on. G-rank B.Gravios has 6000 health and a Defense of 0.7 which is 8571 effective health. Of course, after 50 shots your damage drops to 83 damage and you should have been able to cram in 6 blasts in that time which would be 7450 damage. On the other hand the stomach is probably broken so 372 x 0.3 x 0.55 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 1.2 = 115 damage. This is another 10 shots so maybe you’ll do another Blast and finish it off. So 60 shots? That sounds pretty fucking effective. Sadly it can’t be acquired yet as you can’t fight G-rank Dalamadur yet, only Shah Dalamadur.
Great Purple Emperor – 5350 + 2300 = 7600 and then 312 x 0.3 x 1.025 x 0.55 x 1.5 x 1.5 / 1.2 = 98 damage plus 230 x 0.45 x 5 / 10 = 51 for 149 damage. So another 6 shots? 56 shots? Sounds pretty crazy. Something doesn’t add up here, I’ll have to build this bow and try… (I did, I suck with bow against Black Gravios!)
I could go on but the point is that elemental damage is still pretty good. Kama Sedition and the lower versions are terrific all-purpose bows if you have Loading and preferably Fast Charge as well, and especially if you bring Dash Juices, but against the right enemy elemental bows are still superior as well as not requiring extremely specific skills and consumables.
But let’s move on to less data-intensive stuff.
Shot types
With Rapid shot you can often stand just outside of tail-range which makes it a lot easier to avoid attacks. It has a lot in common with bowguns that way. Rapid is also good at attacking flying wyverns as well as running ones. Shooting things mid-charge is by far easiest with Rapid as with Wide you’re likely to miss half the arrows and with Pierce you’ll have no idea what you’ll be hitting without A LOT of practice. Try it to see what I mean.
Rapid is also excellent at attacking heads and tails. It’s really good against Khezu, Rathalos and other dragons who like charging and shooting fireballs. You can often hit monsters in the head with all the arrows while it’s turning so that when it’s about to charge you’re already moving.
Also Rapid is of course great at destroying parts. The Tigrex and Hero’s bow can even put on Blast Coatings to make it even easier. For the final word in destroying parts there’s the Teostra bows, Bow of Hope and Valor & Courageous Wish. They have Rapid shot, Blastblight inherent and Power shots!
Spread shot is the most aggressive of the shot types as you have to stand at most 2 backhops away from your target. This is usually inside tail range so it’s not as impressive against dragons with tailswipes. Spread shot only deals slightly more damage per volley than Rapid but never hits only one area, unless that area is huge, like Gravios wings or Akantors face. This means Spread is good against monsters without a clear weak point, like Seregios or Seltas Queen.
The best thing about Wide is of course that you never have to aim and that you want to stay extremely close to the monster. For this reason Arc shots are probably best with Spread shot bows as it gives you a good attack for when the monster sprinted to the other side of the screen.
Spread shot is probably best when solo’ing as the monster keeps going for you meaning you have to move more so not having to aim is a blessing as well as being able to stand close.
Pierce shots work entirely different than Rapid and Wide and requires a lot more practice. The optimal distance zone is not much wider but there’s a lot more space between you and the dragon making it harder to gauge. It’s also more important to aim so that the arrow shits all the best areas which means knowing the dragons weak points is more important. The upside is that it deals the most damage per shot and that you can reach hidden weak points/shoot through areas to hit its head etc.
Also, the fact that you should stand a bit further back works nicely in multiplayer as monster A.I gets way more random with more players. The lower focus on you gives you more time to aim correctly. Multiplayer also means coatings gets more interesting, especially Paralysis. The Dah’ren Moh’ran and Zinogre bows both have high pierce and a ton of coatings, including Paralysis.
Finally Arc Focus shots can be decent with Pierce as well since you’re shooting from afar anyway. The only ones are the Rajang, Kushala Daora and Diablos bows however.
The Arc shots are kind of awkward. They do deal good physical as well as elemental damage but only Focus shots are worth using in multiplayer. Wide arc shots cover an area as big as a Rathalos and any other player in the arrow rain will flinch. Blast arc shot is even worse as it’s a explosion that will fling other players away. The upside is that they all deal K.O damage so hitting a dragon in the head with Arc Focus shots is great. They’re also good for breaking monsters backs. With practice Arc shots can be pretty good, especially with the right element but they’re hard to hit with, doesn’t account for distance (which means 50% less physical damage) and often hits other players.
Playing
The most important thing when playing bow, except for learning to always be at optimal distance, is using your mobility. Since you can move while charging your shots, well, you should. While you are firing the shot you should check for visual clues and figure out what the monster is doing next. Most of the time you can start charging another shot immediately but don’t make it a habit as it’ll end with you taking a lot of hits. It takes a lot of practice to “know” whether you can move out of the way in time or not but it’s an important skill. Especially early on when you’re not chugging Dash Juices, rolling drains a lot of stamina that could be used to charge a shot instead.
In short, try to anticipate where the monster will attack and move out of the way before. This is basic stuff with all weapons but it’s extra important with bow as your stamina is your damage. One roll is pretty much one shot less before you have to recharge stamina. It also takes time away from charging.
There’s also a little trick you can learn that’s especially useful in multiplayer. After firing a shot, charge another and walk in a circle so that you’re fully charged when you’ve completed the circle. Then unleash the shot and repeat. The reason for doing this is that you take a small step forward when charging an arrow, so eventually you’ll move out of the optimal distance zone if you just stand and shoot. By doing this you’re always firing from the same range AND you’re already moving which makes it easier to react to attacks.
TL:DR – Always be moving!
Aiming should however not be disregarded. You can’t always be at optimal distance and firing from the right height at the right hitzone, so you should certainly practice aiming. The goal is to be quick enough at it that you don’t lose time.
It’s like this: Bow damage, even with all those extra modifiers still isn’t the highest in the game. It’d be pretty op if it had the highest damage and great mobility. So optimizing damage is practicing until you’re always firing as soon as you see the second flash. With enough practice you know the exact timing and will fire the exact moment it flashes instead of 0,3 seconds later or for that matter 2 seconds later because you’re aiming your shot and the dragon is moving. This leaves you with more time to move and react as well as cutting down your killing times. It’s also of course important to miss as few shots as possible. You only have 50 Power Coatings, missing 10 of them is a noticeable damage decrease.
Also, don’t skimp on using status coatings. Unless the dragon is really vulnerable to your element poisoning it is a definitive damage increase, the same with Blast coatings if you can use them. Also Paralysis coatings are awesome in multiplayer. They’re enough for at least one application, sometimes two which is ample time for the rest of the team to unload. Just make sure to remove the coatings as soon as the monster is paralyzed.
Exhaust coatings are great with arc shots and flash bombs. A exhausted monster is flashed a lot longer, and if you manage to get it into a pit trap and KO it with arc shots it’ll stay there for a hell of a lot of time.
Sleep coatings can be used if you’re bringing bombs but it’s better in solo as people have a tendency to not notice the dragon falling asleep and thus ruining your sleep bombing. Really nice against Gravios for example.
Armor skills
The most basic offensive skill is Fast Charge. It makes charging your shots faster… I can’t tell you exactly how much faster but know it’s noticeable. It’s not however recommended if you’re new as it leaves you with even less time to aim and move.
Loading unlocks the bows next charge. With Kama Sedition this is a must as it only has two charges but Loading is a extremely expensive skill (meaning it’s hard to slot in and talismans with Loading are really uncommon). Most of the time though the fourth charge isn’t worth the extra time it takes to fire each shot. In some cases however you’re getting another type of shot which could mean having access to both Wide and Pierce shot at high level. Basically Loading is really circumstantial and requires some know-how. So again, not for beginners.
Expert is pretty nice, especially with physical bows like the Tigrex or Garuga ones. A crit is another 25% damage which stacks on top of everything else. It’s just straight damage and so great for beginners.
Works wonders with Crit Element if you like elemental bowing.
Tenderizer increases the zones damage by 5% meaning if the zone takes 30% damage it now takes 35% which in this case is a ~16% damage increase. It’s less impressive if the zone already takes 50% damage but 55% is still a 10% damage increase. Tenderizer is best with Spread Shot as you seldom only hit optimal zones.
Stamina is a great early choice, it makes charging arrows cost half as much stamina and is pretty common. There’s also Constitution which makes rolling cost less stamina. Again, stamina is damage and early on it can be pretty daunting to manage.
Normal/Pierce/Pellet Up increases the damage of Rapid, Pierce and Spread shots respectively, Pellet Up by a respectable 30% while the other two increases damage by 10%.
Mycology is a strange skill that lets you eat mushrooms for various bonuses. In particular, Mopeshroom starts acting as a Dash Juice. Mopeshroom can be traded at the wyporium so it’s basically free instead of requiring Gypceros materials. You cannot however acquire it before reaching G-rank but it’s a really cheap skill when you do reach G.
Guts makes it so that you cannot die in one hit if you have more than 60 health, instead you’re reduced to 1 hp. It’s a great skill when learning the ropes and when fighting high G-rank monsters who can kill you in one hit even when you’re at 150 hp…
Similarly, Evade +1/+2/+3 helps surviving really aggressive monsters by just rolling through their attacks. It does cost stamina but with Dash Juice or Mycology… Also, you can roll through screams with Evade.
Evade Up isn’t recommended however as your mobility is plenty fine without it.
Arcana unlocks latent elements and increases all elemental damage as well as status effects. Dream-skill with Sacred Bow G, Kelbi Deershot and others but the only Gunner set with Arcana is the Gogmazios armor. Free Element is the cheaper alternative and only unlocks elements.
Earplugs +1/+2 can be decent, especially against Rathalos and in general on G-rank when monsters start being able to attack you while you’re recovering from the scream. Good with Spread as you’re always close. With Pierce shots you can usually move out of the screams area of effect instead.
Good early bows
Crow Bow is a good physical bow, it’s pretty much the only one with Power Coatings. It also boosts Poison which is nice.
Later on the Tigrex Bows are a good choice but eventually you’ll want to build the Seregios bows. This is however late high-rank so I’m getting ahead of myself.
Supplication, the Dahren Mohran bow is a great choice if you get the Power C+ skill as it can’t use Power Coatings.
Entbehrung, the Gore Magala bow is the only Power Shot bow with Wide shots and it has this from the start. Great weapon against anything that’s weak to dragon damage.
Scylla Fist, the first Nerscylla bow is another Power shot bow that’s even earlier than Entbehrung but you need Power C+ for this as well.
If you can be assed, Dios Flier is the first Brachydios bow and has the Blastblight status effect inherent and fires Wide shots.
You’ll get plenty far with just the Garuga and Seregios bows but if you want to really get into bowing I suggest building a wide variety of them, preferably at least one of each element.
Really, really late-game you can get relic bows from guild quests that can have any variation of shot types. So you can get a Wide 5 Thunder bow with Power Shots. Considering the amount of variables bows has relic bows really can produce the absolute best weapons, it’s just totally random…
And that’s goddamn enough. I might add more at some point, if you have an idea please say so in the comments. Also point out errors if you find any.
Very comprehensive! Thanks for the love for gunners! There is little of them mh4u. I would also like to recommend adding some armors in to the list that has some of the skills mentioned. Also personally I really like evade distance up. In LR I used lagombi lobster mix and in high rank I used full nargacuga
. Both carries evade +1/2 and evade distance but that’s my preference really . Anyway great work! :)
Thanks! :) I love Evade Up as well but mainly as a Bowgun skill. I’m gonna do a HBG guide at some point and it’ll definitely be there. Especially the Nargacuga set which is my favourite by far :3
Im not really into bow as i find it hard to to kill monster quickly(maybe im just suck). then im thinking of maybe i should try be a support status gunner(for fun and learning purpose). Just made a cham’s set that has status +2 and status critical. So how bout that 2 skills for bow? Or should i just gem in paraC+ and sleepC+ instead?
You should look up the Sacred Bow as it has all the coatings. There’s also the Chameleos Bowgun with all the status shots