Monster Hunter Wilds – High Rank Tips

High Rank (HR) Guide

Capturing 

How to capture monsters?

• When on the map there is a skull on the monster, it is time to trap it using a Shock Trap or Pitfall Trap. Once trapped, two tranq bombs or two tranq blades will capture it.
• You can also apply the tranqs before trapping the monster, allowing for immediate capture once they trigger the trap. But, once the tranqs are used, you only have about 1 minute to trap the monster before they need to be reapplied. 

Fish Farm

What is the best way to grind guild points or zenny?

• Go to Scarlet Forest, Area 8: Underground Lake and use the capture net on the fishes. You can sell the platinum/gold scales for a lot of zenny.
  • This also doubles as an Ancient Wyvern Coin farm as there is one every rest reset.

Layered Equips

How to unlock/equip layered armor?

You must craft any piece of high rank equipment then go to your tent, last page there is “Equipment Appearances.”

How do I unlock layered weapons?

You can’t yet. This feature is likely to come in future updates (Maybe TU2 in the summer of 2025).

Finding Monsters

How to find high rank monsters?

• They’re all in the wild now! You must hunt one down before it is stored as an optional quest in Alma’s quest list. If you can’t seem to find a specific monster in the wild, it’s likely that you need to progress more of the story.
  • You can not join SOS missions of high rank monsters that you are not of high enough hunter rank for.

Can I still hunt/find low rank monsters?

Yes! Just go to Alma → Optional Quests → look for the quests that are lower than 4 stars

Crafting

Why can’t I craft or see the crafting requirements for some equipment?

You are either not high enough hunter rank or you are missing the key materials (this could be an ore or could be a certain monster’s parts).

What is the difference between ɑ and ꞵ armor? Which should I craft?

• ɑ armor comes with more skills, but loses some amount in deco slots
• ꞵ comes with less skills, but its advantage is that it has more deco slots
• Generally, ꞵ is always better as it provides you more flexibility in builds, as you can always slot the skill from the ɑ set if needed or something else, while ɑ armor can not always slot another skill.

Gore Greaves Alpha set comes with Flinch Free Lv2, Antivirus Lv1, one 3 socket and one 1 socket

Gore Greaves Beta comes with Flinch Free Lv1, Antivirus Lv1, one 3 socket and two 1 sockets

*Flinch Free is a 1 socket skill so technically Beta is always better because you can just slot in your own flinch free or if you need versatility, any other 1 socket deco.

Finding Material

How to get x monster material?

Always look at your encyclopedia that the game gives you. The encyclopedia even gives the drop rate %s and if it’s from breaking a monster part, it’ll say what part must be broken.

An Arkveld as an example; breaking the chains can reward Arkvel Calloushells

Farm Material

How to farm monster materials fast?

Do not do optional quests as they do not come with mission rewards, check for investigations that come with materials inside the mission rewards. Sometimes this could be common material parts, rare material parts or even a jewel in the mission rewards.

White is basic material, copper color is valuable materials and there is also a jewel

How to farm x gathering material?

• Make a gathering set and go gather for it, or talk to Nata as he can connect you to village npcs that will gather material for you once you unlock them by finishing their side quests.
• Provided below is the gathering set I use:
  • I’ve heard of some people using Intimidator as there are some mobs that will aggro on you but some mobs will still aggro regardless of max Intimidator

Armor & Skill Info; Outdoorsman & Entomologist is also being used.

Decos & Forager Luck (most important to get rare materials).

How to get Hunting Symbol 1/2/3?

• Hunting Symbol 1 is from tempered 5* missions.
• Hunting Symbol 2 is from tempered 6* missions.
• Hunting Symbol 3 is from tempered 7* and 8* missions.

Side Quests

Why can I not turn in a certain side quest?

Sometimes the weather or time is wrong so the NPC will not load in. A notable example are the Kunafa Windsong villagers as they do not come out in inclemency weather.

How do I unlock armor/power charm?

• These two are free stat boosters you get from clearing side quests.
  • Armorcharm: “Secure Wounded Hollow”
  • Powercharm: “As Gatekeeper”
• After getting them, make sure it is in your inventory to get the free stat boost.

Why is it when I see “x npc has a meal ready for you” and I go, I can not receive it?

You need to do some side quests in that area to increase favorability between the NPCs; this is a hidden mechanic.

Decorations

How to farm certain decos?

• 1 sockets can be melded in Suja once you unlock it at HR40 by talking to the old lady with a cauldron
• 2 sockets and higher rarity 1 sockets can be melded at HR100
• 3 sockets can only be farmed currently by farming Ancient Orbs.
  • It is yellow for weapons and cyan color for armor.
  • The image provided shows a good quest on what to look for when farming 3 socket deco orbs

Artian

How do I get Oricalcite for Artian upgrading? + How do I get armor spheres for armor upgrading?

• There is a smelting foundry in Oilwell Basin that you can smelt monster parts for. 
• You only need 50 oricalcite for a max level Artian weapon.

An example of smelting monster parts for 100x Oricalcite.

Why should I use Artian weapons?

• Rarity 6 and Rarity 7 Artian weapons are not worth farming/leveling but Rarity 8 Artians are worth it as it has triple 3 socket slots.
• Some weapons have monster weapons that are equal to or maybe better than Artian weapons so check on guides if you want to be optimal. 

What Artian upgrade should I aim for?

• For most weapons, you should use 3 of the same element parts that are attack infusion and when upgrading you want to aim for 3 attack / 2 sharpness or 4 attack / 1 sharpness.
  • Range weapons are an exception as they have no sharpness, so best roll for bow would be 5 attack and best roll for HBG/LBG would be 3 attack and 2 capacity.

An example of 3 attack infusions + 4 attack reinforcements / 1 sharpness boost.

What element/status Artian should I use?

• Generally paralyze & blast is what most people are using; however, do check your weapon’s guides as some would like other elements/status.
  • EX: Greatsword prefers Sleep as you can TCS to do 1k damage on a sleeping monster.
• Dragon is currently the best element as most end-game bosses are weak to it.

What is the best way to reroll an Artian weapon?

1. Save.
2. Craft a single weapon using your junk parts.
3. Reinforce them to see their rolled stats.
4. If you don’t get what you want, dismantle the bad roll.
5. Save here.
6. Repeat until you get the roll you want on the junk parts.
7. Reload here without saving.
8. Craft a single weapon with your good parts.

Zoh Shia

How to find Zoh Shia?

• Once you are HR50+, you can receive a quest in Suja to fight Zoh Shia. 
• After this quest, to find another Zoh Shia, you must be inclemency weather in Wyveria; time does not seem to matter. Zoh Shia is not a roamer so it will be in the map overview similar to Jin Dahaad.