A very important caveat about uptime assumptions is that different people have different uptimes for different skills. This depends on the player’s skill level and the monster matchup. The best way to get uptimes that are relevant to you, would be to measure the uptime yourself. This can be done via video analysis (tedious), or via mods.

The uptimes we cite here are based on generally good gameplay (e.g. huge focus on hitting weakspots, not getting hit too often, and using good combos). Speedrunners may have better uptimes, and new players may have worse. Because as set builders, we have to make assumptions and generalisations about skill level and monster matchups, these numbers are really just averages, and you may find that your own uptime for a particular monster differs significantly. Hence, if you want the actual uptime, measure it yourself.

• Uptime assumptions:
• Frenzy Heal: 70%
• Assumed 70% uptime for good play.
• Antivirus reduces the threshold to overcome the Frenzy Virus by 30%, added to that the weapon motion values have been increased across the board when compared to Sunbreak.
• Please see section 2.3.5 Frenzy for more detailed discussion on how this skill now works.

• Coalescence: 37.5%
• Because we assume you get one cure on average every 80s, and Coalescence lasts for 30s, the uptime is 37.5%.

• Maximum Might: 80% on normal sets, practically 100% on Second Wind sets.
• Accounts for PG stamina depletion as well as rolls, backsteps, etc.
• Note that Maximum Might now has a “grace period” where you have to spend 2s below maximum stamina before it deactivates.

• Burst:
• First hit bonus: 100% (practically always on)
• 5th hit bonus: 70% (analysed from the uptime mod back in Sunbreak)
• Because the way this skill activates and upgrades mid combat has not changed from Sunbreak, we don’t expect this value to change for Wilds.

• Agitator: 70%
• Unlike Sunbreak, monsters don’t have a forced cooldown period making this skill viable once again.

• Offensive Guard: 40%

SnS has no innate sharpness mitigation beyond using Shield attacks, and spends around 120 - 150 sharpness in 3 - 4 minutes, which is around the time a monster will change area.

Hence, sharpness management is essential.

For this guide, we will recommend Master’s Touch in general given that most of the sets have good affinity. Razor Sharp + Handicraft is slightly inferior but will still work if you don’t have the Master’s Touch deco.

For more details on sharpness management options, see section 8.2 How to determine which sharpness skill to run.

First Slot: Meat as a base for food grants +2 Raw.

Second Slot:

• Caprice Meal (Hi) (Airy Egg) gives +15 Raw in random intervals during its Duration, which last for 10 seconds each.
Tumbler Meal (Mud and Turbid Shrimp) grant additional Iframes on dodges Moxie Meal (Specialty/Slid Garlic) can save you from a one shot attack when above the hp threshold.

Third Slot depends on Set and Location.

Ultimately, there is no stand-out absolute banger meal that will make a ginormous impact, so eating whatever is available or cooked by villagers or even just Meat is good enough.

The current consensus is to give it a Paralysis Weapon. Para is the preferred status over Sleep, as it doesn’t interfere with Agitator and we don’t have any big wake-up hits.

Cat unlocks extra abilities by doing its Side Quests, namely:

• Revive on cart with half health (once per quest)
• Spawn Vigor Wasps
• Steal materials
• Attack with aerial bombardment

Frenzy activates at an MV threshold, but this threshold increases over the course of the hunt based on how many times you’ve already triggered Frenzy cure. My rough estimates are 450/550/650/750/850 (cap) MV. Of course, this could be wrong, and I’ll correct it as new information comes in, but for now this is my best guess as to how this skill works in Wilds.

A couple of things to note:

• Our MVs in Wilds are slightly higher than in Sunbreak (15 - 20% higher)
• Hunts now are quite short as monsters don’t have a lot of HP.
• Antivirus 3 reduces the MV threshold to cure by 30%

The uptime from Sunbreak was 30s pre-cure, 60s post-cure on average across a hunt.

Because in Wilds we now have Antivirus and increased MVs, we can calculate a new theoretical uptime:

• 30s x 0.7 x 0.85 = 17s
• 17s down and 60s up is about 78% uptime.

Whiteflame Torrent and Flayer both work very similarly in terms of what attacks they can proc on.
Read this first: This is how Flayer doesn't work (Reddit: r/MonsterHunterMeta; opens in new tab)

Flayer now seems to work with more moves in TU1, as dataminers found that more attacks now have _UseSkillAdditionalDamage set to True.

Flayer/Whiteflame Torrent does not currently work with:

• Leaping Slash
• Perfect Rush hits
• Focus Strike extra hits and the main stab itself, as well as all followups
• Clash stabs
• Charged Chop hits (except the first upward hit)
• Spinning Reaper
• Jumping and Scaling Slash
• Mounting attacks
• Counter Slash
• Corrupted Mantle extra hits
• Shield Bash combo
• Falling Bash (Plunging Thrust still procs Flayer/Whiteflame Torrent)

Whiteflame Torrent works as follows:

For Scorcher 1 + Whiteflame on an average 20 eHZV:

• 60 flat + (20/100) * (30) * 1 = 66 damage
• 66 damage every 7 seconds = 9.42 DPS increase

For Scorcher 2 + Whiteflame on an average 20 eHZV

• 80 flat + (20/100) * (80) * 1 = 96 damage
• 96 damage every 7 seconds = 13.71 DPS increase

We know our theoretical DPS on monsters already.
Let’s assume Rey Dau hitzones (60:20) and we’re using our sustained damage combo Lateral Loop.
On a typical Verdoloto Ice build, we get 179 theoretical DPS on Lateral Combo > SR > CC2, and 160 theoretical DPS on lateral slash > Return Stroke > Roundslash looped.

7 more damage per average of 10.5s in this case would be about:

• 3.9% damage more on Lateral Combo > SR > CC2
• 4.3% damage more on Lateral Loop.

However, these DPS numbers are theoretical and most of the time your actual DPS is going to be far lower due to downtime, getting hit, etc.
The nice thing about the internal cooldown of Whiteflame is that it doesn’t matter what you do in those 3 seconds or so. You could be not attacking and Whiteflame will still operate as per usual. Hence, the actual DPS contribution of Whiteflame is going to be similar regardless of your actual damage output, unless you’re doing something wrong (aka not hitting the monster once every 3 seconds for the majority of the fight).

Let’s take 3* Tempered Arkveld with around 24K HP. If you kill Tempered Arkveld in 5 minutes, you’re dealing about 80 DPS, and if you kill Tempered Arkveld in 7.5 minutes, you’re dealing about 53.3 DPS.
If we assume that Whiteflame’s DPS +7.14 remains similar regardless of your actual damage output (barring extreme cases), then:

• 5 min T. Arkveld:
• Whiteflame Torrent: +8.9% damage increase
• Whiteflame Torrent + Scorcher 1: +11.8%
• Whiteflame Torrent + Scorcher 2: +17.1%
• 7.5 min T. Arkveld: +13.4% damage increase
• Whiteflame Torrent + Scorcher 1: +17.7%
• Whiteflame Torrent + Scorcher 2:: +25.7%

Whiteflame Torrent is actually pretty powerful, and Scorcher is pretty good when paired with Whiteflame as well.
Whiteflame Torrent becomes more powerful the less damage you deal, because across a range of DPS, it will contribute similarly.

Of course, the caveats of these calculations would be:

• You hit the monster once every 3 seconds. If you play well, this is quite doable. If you get hit infrequently, it doesn’t affect the math too much. If you get hit a lot and need to heal a lot, it does start to affect Whiteflame uptime, but generally you’ll still benefit from this skill.
• You use certain types of rotations. Generally, because SnS uses a lot of attacks that proc Whiteflame and does many of those attacks across a span of time, it does not have a lot of issues getting 1 check done every 3 seconds generally. However, if you’re a Perfect Rush enjoyer, you may find that your Whiteflame Torrent damage is lacking.

But overall, Whiteflame is a good skill.

Convert Element triggers when you get hit by enough elemental attacks (varies from matchup to matchup?). Notably, Guard and Perfect Guard still count as getting hit for Convert Element to proc.

Once it procs, for 2 minutes, you gain the following effects:

• If your weapon is Dragon element, gain +8/12/18 element (post-bloat removal)
• If your weapon is elemental (i.e. not raw/status), deal 150/200/280 flat damage + 1 ele mod off 60/80/100 Dragon element every so often.

The first part of the effect is not very significant, especially considering that the SnS is a raw-centred weapon (most of our damage comes from raw damage [85 - 90%], even for pre-nerf Corrupted Mantle loops where the elemental damage only topped out at 15 - 20% of our damage).

The second part of the effect is the notable part of the skill. It seems to build up as a status, meaning that it gets exponentially harder to proc the explosion the more times you have already triggered the explosion.

• The raw of your weapon
• The critical damage multiplier (if your hits crit)
• MV of the hit
• Convert Element level modifier (1.1/1.15/1.2 from levels 1 - 3)

• Monster hitzones
• Element damage that you deal
• Sharpness damage modifier

Because Kiranico status numbers are inaccurate for quests and we don’t have a robomeche equivalent resource for status like we do in Rise and World, it is extremely difficult to quantify the general contribution of Convert Element across monsters and across sets. The main way to test Convert Element’s contribution would be to bring in a damage overlay mod to a specific hunt, but you would get results that only apply to that specific hunt, and to the way you played in that hunt.

Until we get actual status numbers, we will only provide Convert Element sample sets and describe the damage differential between these sets and the general sets, as well as how many procs you need for the Convert Element sets to beat out the regular sets.

Bladescale Honing is a new skill introduced in TU2. It is present on Seregios weapons. It shares the same activation requirement as Adrenaline Rush (it activates on a successful roll/backhop through an attack, but not on Sliding Swipe).

Once activated, it provides 6 units of what we call “Seregios sharpness”.

• This sharpness is a slightly better version of purple sharpness, with 1.4x raw multiplier (as opposed to 1.39x for purple) and 1.25x elemental multiplier (although for Seregios weapons, they don’t have element).
• This multiplier applies regardless of the weapon’s underlying current sharpness (e.g. if you’re at green and gain Seregios sharpness, you still get the same 1.4x raw multiplier).
• These 6 units of sharpness cannot be extended via Razor Sharp or Master’s Touch.
• Attacks which burn less or 0 sharpness (e.g. shield attacks, Plunging Thrust, Charged Chop follow-up hits) will continue to burn the same amount of sharpness, so you could theoretically extend these 6 units of sharpness across more than 6 hits.

Unfortunately, for SnS, 6 units of sharpness is too little for practical use, considering how fast we burn through sharpness in general. The gain from 1.32x (white) to 1.4x is about 6% increase in damage, meaning that when you have Seregios sharpness, the Seregios weapon goes from 220 base raw to effectively 233 base raw. That’s still not wholly competitive, especially when we take into account the weapon’s poor white sharpness count.

Razor’s Edge is the Seregios set skill.

• Level 1: extends Adrenaline Rush duration from 30s to 45s, and extends Arush by another 15s if triggered while active (normally, unlike other skills, Adrenaline Rush does not refresh itself if procced while it is active)
• Level 2: adds a 5% display raw buff while ARush is active

This skill is not strong enough to justify using Seregios armor over Rey Dau armor. The predominant SnS playstyle currently also does not have many chances to activate Adrenaline Rush, because Perfect Guards and Sliding Swipes are preferred over Rolls and Backhops to maintain Maximum Might.

Convert Thunder Resistance is the Lagiacrus SnS weapon skill. It grants bonus display thunder element to the weapon equal to 40% of your armor’s Thunder Resistance. For the current meta set (3pc Rey), which has 23 Thunder Resistance, that would be equal to 5.75 thunder ele (multiply by 10 to account for in-game element bloat).

Azure Bolt is a skill that works very similarly to Flayer/Whiteflame Torrent. It has an internal cooldown (likely 3 seconds, similarly to Flayer/Whiteflame). You need to accumulate about 100MV damage and the hit after the 100MV triggers the explosive damage (ignore hitzones and your raw) Once you accumulate enough MV damage, the skill procs:

• Level 1:
• Explodes for 30 flat + 70 * thunder HZV/100
• Starts an affinity bonus of 15% affinity for 20 seconds
• After the affinity bonus ends, goes on cooldown for 30 seconds.
• Level 2:
• Explodes for 60 flat + 200 * thunder HZV/100
• Starts an affinity bonus of 15% affinity for 30 seconds
• After the affinity bonus ends, goes on cooldown for 30 seconds

If we want to calculate a theoretical uptime for Azure Bolt, it’s not too difficult. This is as the uptime of Azure Bolt is mostly fixed within a certain range and the time taken to activate it doesn’t change the uptime of Azure Bolt too much.

We assume from Frenzy activation (600MV in 30 seconds, can be done faster) that you clock about 120MV in 6 seconds, or 20MV/s. We know that there is an internal cooldown so if you take 6 procs to activate Azure Bolt that pulls up activation uptime to 20s. Based on some testing, Azure Bolt typically activates much faster, so let’s say 20s is an edge case. If you’re fast and lucky (maybe you land some hard hitting attacks and proc it within say 2 procs), then you could potentially proc it in 6s or so.

So, to calculate uptime for the two edge case above:

• For the unlucky edge case: 20s up / (30 down + 20 up + 20 activate) = 28% uptime
• For the lucky edge case: 20s up / (30 down + 20 up + 6 activate) = 35% uptime

For calculations, I think it’s quite safe to assume 30% uptime.
That’s about 4.5% effective affinity for the 2pc set. In contrast, Gore 2pc gives 25% * 0.7 = 17.5% effective affinity for the 2pc. We can see that the effective affinity bonus for Azure Bolt is actually quite small.

As for the damage contribution of the explosion, it’s about 45 flat damage per 60s or so. That’s 45/60 = 0.75 DPS bonus. Compared to Whiteflame, which can contribute upwards of 10+ bonus DPS, Azure Bolt’s DPS bonus is mostly negligible. In calculations, we add about a 1% bonus damage multiplier to account for Azure Bolt’s impact on DPS, because the typical good player will hit around 60 DPS (based on experience with DPS tracker mods in game).

Dark arts: This is a 2 Piece armor set bonus skill for the Normal Omega armor (It’s Bale!) This skill works as follow
When you have Red HP, Increase element by x1.25 Unlike Strife in sunbreak where it's based on the amount of red hp this is fixed. We can’t exactly use this skill due to us having like no way to get resentment reliability at all.
Greatsword players will probably like this.

as for omega resonance:
This is a 2/4 Piece armor set bonus skill for the Savage Omega armor (not Bale!) The skill works as follows
effects initialize but do not apply in solo
works when someone joins, deactivates when they leave
10/20 Raw for far
20/40 affinity for close
randomly chosen effect at start of hunt, alternates every 90s based on quest timer.

So like calculation wise the uptime of both of these skills are “50%” assuming you are multi with other people and they don't ruin your quests to stack or not to stack. We could make an optimization for multiplayer based builds but for general sake and the reliance of a teammate make this really unappealing. (You lose dps skills 2)
I could make a meme build around this but it feels kinda forced - PokerDew

The current meta revolves around Artian Weapons for almost all cases (Raw/Status and Element).
You should make an Artian weapon for each element.
For the Artian raw weapons, even though they have less status than the craftable weapons, they still outperform the craftables overall. All the statuses are fine to use. Blast and Poison are very similar in output.

The current recommendation for crafting is:

• Blade/Tube/Disc of the same element/status and all three with Attack Infusion
• Reinforce with 3 Raw/ 2 Sharp. 4 Raw/1 Sharp will be slightly stronger (<1%) but will be slightly less comfy to use now due to inflated monster HP that is significantly higher.

Something to take note of is that Artian element weapons outperform all craftables even before reinforcement. Of course, you still want minimally 1 sharpness augment to boost the white sharpness from 20 to 50, because 20 sharpness is almost unusable, but don’t worry too much that your weapon is 3 Ele/1Affinity/1Sharpness or some other result, because they’ll still be stronger than the craftables:

• At max roll (4 Raw/ 1 Sharp), they outperform by 5-10% depending on element.
• At minimum roll, they may be equivalent or outperform by 3 - 5% depending on element.

You only really need to chase the max roll if you’re a speedrunner aiming for a record, and even then, you will probably want to perform the calculations yourself on which roll is most suitable for your script.

The current recommendation for weapon decorations is:

• Critical Boost 3
• Offensive Guard 3 / Ele Attack 1 (for element) OR Handicraft 1 (for raw/status)
• Master’s Touch

Right now, Artian element weapons with the below sets basically outperform the Artian raw weapons on everything except for the most raw-skewed matchups (e.g. Arkveld’s 0EHZV chainblades). Even then, element weapons lose less than 1% compared to raw weapons. We would recommend element weapons in basically all cases.

I would highly encourage you to just craft an Artian weapon and reinforce it, because an almost no-reinforcement Artian weapon (with 1 sharpness reinforcement) will still beat out all the options listed here.
The purpose of this section is to provide recommendations in case you’re still grinding out the Artian parts and you want to know what’s the next best alternative.

They do NOT assume Might Seed, Demon Powder, Mega/Demon Drug or specific food skills due to how annoying they are to farm. They DO however assume the Power Charm, obtained by doing the Double Ajarakan Arena quest (“As Gatekeeper”) from Rex’s Questline in Suja.

The current recommendation for weapon decorations is:

• Critical Boost 3
• Offensive Guard 3 / Ele Attack 1 (for element) OR Handicraft 1 (for raw/status)
• Master’s Touch

The current recommendation for each element is:

• Fire: Melting Point (Guardian Rathalos)
• Water: Sandsea Katduva (Balahara)
• Kurenawi Ougi (Mizutsune) if you don’t guard often enough to use OFG3 well
• Thunder: High Lagia Sword (Lagicrus)
• Ice: Precipice Mateptro (Jin Dahaad)
• Dragon: Blazing Mikal (Zoh Shia)

Zoh Shia’s weapon performs very similarly to the Artian Dragon weapon with god rolls (4 Attack/1 Sharpness). The Verdoloto will edge out Blazing Mikal slightly for speedrunners, while for casual players (e.g. 8min+ for Tempered Arkveld 3*), the Blazing Mikal will start to perform better.
For combos to use to proc Whiteflame, as long as you’re not spamming Perfect Rush on repeat, you’ll be fine. Because of how Whiteflame works, it only checks every 3s for a valid attack. Most of our normal attacks proc Whiteflame, so there’s basically no issue with triggering Whiteflame. You should still use Spinning Reaper and Charged Chop as per usual.

For Zoh Shia, the two decorations recommended are:

• Master’s Touch
• Critical Boost 3 (you get slightly more damage with Critical Boost 3 than Offensive Guard 3/Dragon Attack 1)

Lagiacrus’s weapon performs very similarly to the Artian Thunder weapon with god rolls (4 Attack/1 Sharpness). It is slightly weaker (3-4%) compared to the Artian Thunder weapon, and will come very close (1% weaker) on very elemental-skewed matchups (e.g. 40:20 raw:ele ratios). These numbers are calculated using a Thunder element resistance of 23 (from 3pc AT Rey Dau + Zoh Shia Chest + Lagiacrus Boots), for the Convert Thunder Resistance skill of the Lagiacrus weapon.

For Lagiacrus, the two decorations recommended are:

• Master’s Touch
• Critical Boost 3 (you get slightly more damage with Critical Boost 3 than Offensive Guard 3/Thunder Attack 1)

The current raw recommendations are:

• Blast: Ajara-Subinda
• Poison: Queen Rapier
• Paralysis: Lala Acanthopelm

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• Armor: AT Rey Dau / AT Nu Udra / AT Rey Dau / Lagiacrus B / Lagiacrus B
• Charm: Get whatever with at least Agi1/WEX1/Burst 1 and some decent slots or use 2agi charm
• Decos: Burst x1, Maximum Might x1, Agitator x3, WEX x1, Counterstrike x1
• Weapons: Any Artian Meta Raw & element or craftables.

(BLOCKING DOES NOT PROC CS) the dps is better by 3~8% (as in 1-100% uptime though idk if it's linear or expo). Depending on how much CS uptime you had. Do you love Errataing? I am. So anyways this build is the better improved version of the main DPS build with minimal losses (That being some LP Thanks burst for taking the LP slot) You lose like no dps by playing well and get more dps simply for being “bad”
Also erm yeah I rewrote this whole thing thanks to me forgetting burst 1, Enjoy.

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• Armor: AT Rey Dau / AT Nu Udra / Lagiacrus B / Lagiacrus B / AT Uth Duna
• Charm: Get whatever with at least Agi1/WEX1/Burst 1 and some decent slots or use 2agi charm
• Decos: Burst x1, Maximum Might x1, Agitator x2, WEX x2, Counterstrike x1
• Weapons: Any Artian Meta Raw & Element or Craftables.

(BLOCKING DOES NOT PROC CS) the dps is better by 3~8% (as in 1-100% uptime though idk if it's linear or expo). Depending on how much CS uptime you had. Do you love Errataing? I am. So anyways this build is the better improved version of the main DPS build with minimal losses (That being some LP Thanks burst for taking the LP slot) You lose like no dps by playing well and get more dps simply for being “bad”
Also erm yeah I rewrote this whole thing thanks to me forgetting burst 1, Enjoy.

This thing basically ruined all the whole point of the 2lagi set and the generic 3AT mons set in one fell swoop if for whatever reason. GG capcom you make me agitated even more so somehow Hey so uh another more errata a bit, You drop 1 2 flex slots for like more average crits all around, this build is only worse than the main one by the no latent power.
MT charm is technically the best for us im just lazy to include because OFG3 charms are much much more common than MT

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• Armor: Zoh Shia (Numinous) B / Zoh Shia (Numinous) B / AT Rey / AT Rey / AT Uth Duna
• Charm: WEX 2
• Decos: Burst x1, Maximum Might x1, Agitator x1, WEX x3
• Weapons: Any Artian Meta Raw & Element or Craftables.

This set is worse than the main meta set by <~8%. This set gains the Zoh Shia’s set bonus Super Recovery, which provides passive health recovery (1hp/2s). Super Recovery along with Guts from Lord’s Soul provide additional survivability for more comfy hunts.

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• Armor: AT Rey / Gore Magala B / AT Rey / AT Rey / Gore Magala B
• Charm: Critical Eye 3, Agi/Burst 1 OR Agitator 2
• Decos: Agitator x3-4, Burst x1, Antivirus x2, Shockproof x1
• Weapons: Any Artian Meta Raw & Element or Craftables.

This build is for monsters with relevant Mind’s Eye hitzones (≤44 hzv), namely Gore Magala and Lagiacrus. The breakpoint for this build to beat the standard builds happens when about 10-20% of your hits land on Mind’s Eye hitzones. This means that if you hit Wex hitzones (≥45hzv) less than 80% of the time, then this build can beat other meta builds. Gore Magala and Lagiacrus especially have many hitzones where you will end up hitting due to how they behave during the fight.

Alternative build (mhwildshub, opens in new tab) that adds Counterstrike 3 but loses 1-2 Latent Power, Evade Extender 2, and Evade Window 1. Requires a good charm (Mastery/Mind’s Eye 3/Crit Eye 3) with armor slots to fit the 3rd Sane jewel.