Best Monster Hunter Wilds weapons and tier list

What are the best weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds? Whether you’re a returning player or someone new to the franchise, picking a weapon requires a bit of forethought. Monster Hunter games have rather steep learning curves, and Wilds is no different. Picking the wrong weapon can really hamper your enjoyment of the game, as you wouldn’t be the first to stop playing when it doesn’t click.

Before getting too ahead of yourself in Monster Hunter Wilds, you might want to read up on all Monster Hunter Wilds monsters that we know about in the RPG game. We’ve gone ahead and broken down each of the Monster Hunter Wilds weapons on offer and why you might want to use them.

Best Monster Hunter Wilds weapons

Combining power, mobility, and ease-of-use, these are the best three weapons to pick when you start your journey in Monster Hunter Wilds.

• Best all around weapon: Great Sword.
• Best ranged weapon: Bow.
• Most versatile weapon: Long Sword.

The best all around weapon in Monster Hunter Wilds is the Great Sword. Sporting decent range, good maneuverability, great damage, the Great Sword is easy enough to learn for beginners. The new Focus mechanic allows for more precise aiming, making it even more potent than ever before.

The best ranged weapon in Monster Hunter Wilds is the Bow. The Bow has both long range and close-up attacks, plenty of evasive moves that help charge up shots, and a new Trick Arrow system that gives your arrows homing properties. As a ranged weapon, it’s also great at targeting wounds. Despite its high learning curve, the Bow doesn’t have any major weaknesses.

The most versatile weapon to consider in Monster Hunter Wilds is the Long Sword. The Long Sword has always been both a fan and developer favorite, combining reach with incredible power output from building a Spirit Gauge to unleash devastating attacks. No matter what monster you find yourself up against, the Long Sword is a great option that won’t hours to learn.

Monster Hunter Wilds weapons tier list

It’s important to note that while there are some clear differences when it comes to the Monster Hunter Wilds weapons, you can negate a lot of the downsides to each weapon when working with a group of players.

Here’s our Monster Hunter Wilds weapon tier list for the beta:

All Monster Hunter Wilds weapons

There are 14 weapons types in Monster Hunter Wilds. You’re able to bring two weapons with you during hunts, with your Seikret mount holding your secondary weapon in case you need to swap to it.

While we suggest taking one of the easier-to-learn weapons as you figure out how Monster Hunter works, there’s no penalty apart from increased challenge for taking something like the Insect Glaive right away. In fact, going for the weapon that interests you the most may be the most rewarding game to play.

Here are all the Monster Hunter Wilds weapon types:

• Great Sword: A powerful, well-balanced weapon with a low learning curve.
• Sword & Shield: An agile and defensive weapon that trades power for utility.
• Hammer: A slow and powerful weapon that can stun with well-timed charged attacks.
• Lance: A methodical defense-first weapon with decent range.
• Switch Axe: A versatile weapon that can switch between axe and sword form.
• Insect Glaive: A complicated weapon that utilizes insects to power up aerial attacks.
• Heavy Bowgun: A long-distance gun that hits hard but has low maneuverability.
• Long Sword: A swift weapon that builds a Spirit Gauge capable of transforming attacks.
• Dual Blades: An extremely fast weapon with a special Demon Mode that greatly increases damage.
• Hunting Horn: A support weapon that provides blunt attacks and buffs.
• Gunlance: A weapon that trades mobility for great defenses and high damage.
• Charge Blade: A complicated weapon that builds power in one form to unleash it in another.
• Light Bowgun: A mid-range weapon with a low learning curve.
• Bow: A well-balanced ranged weapon with different types of arrows.

Great Sword

• Beginner friendly: Yes
• Guarding: Yes
• Secondary weapon: Light Bowgun or Dual Blades

The Great Sword is the ideal choice for hunters that prefer simplicity, as it has straightforward, powerful attacks. For most of Monster Hunter’s history, its True Charged Slash combo has provided an effective way to deal massive damage to monstrous foes.

The rest of its kit has received a lot of damage buffs to make it less reliant on one or two moves. Furthermore, Focus Mode gives the Great Sword additional maneuverability, meaning you’ll whiff your slow attacks a lot less, and its ability to Perfect Guard makes up for slow movement speed with it unsheathed.

Its focus attack called Perforate sees your hunter run alongside the monster, cutting open wounds that are low to the ground and giving you a brief window to get off a True Charged Slash combo.

Consider bringing either the Light Bowgun for some ranged utility as the Great Sword struggles to hit wounds or weak points that aren’t low to the ground. Otherwise, the Dual Blades are a great alternative against more aggressive monsters as you’ll have a lot more speed to work with.

Sword & Shield

• Beginner friendly: Yes
• Guarding: Yes
• Secondary weapon: Great Sword

Hunters should pick up the Sword & Shield if they’re unsure what kind of weapon they want to use in Monster Hunter Wilds, as it’s strong in practically any situation. Agile with plenty of defensive options, your Hunter can get quick hits in while dodging or defending when necessary, and can even pop a potion without having to sheath your weapon.

This time around, Capcom has improved the Sword & Shield by introducing new attacks like the Charged Chop to help target specific areas when fighting stubborn monsters. Throw in the ability to Perfect Guard, and you won’t find many situations the Sword & Shield can’t handle.

Its focus attack, Vital Stab, is a simple stab forward that latches onto the monster if you hit a wound. This allows you to either slash downward for massive wound damage or slash upward to become airborne, letting you mount the monster.

You may want to consider taking the Great Sword as it’s also a beginner-friendly weapon that hits hard and has great range, making up for the Sword & Shields drawbacks.

Hammer

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: None
• Secondary weapon: Dual Blades or Light Bowgun

On the surface, the Hammer looks straightforward: hit the monster on the head with charged attacks to stun them and repeat. That is, however, easier said than done, as it requires you to have acute knowledge of monster movesets. Furthermore, it lacks defensive options. The Hammer has received buffs to its moveset in Wilds, primarily with the inclusion of the easy-to-connect Spinning Bludgeon follow-up move.

For its focus attack, the Hammer has Earthquake which causes your hunter to spin in a circle if you hit a wound or a monster’s head, dealing massive damage over a large area.

The Dual Blades is a great alternative pick as the Hammer truly struggles against mobile enemies, unless you’re an expert. The Dual Blades are incredibly agile, something the Hammer lacks against speedy enemies. As always, the Light Bowgun is also a great ranged backup.

Lance

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: Yes
• Secondary weapon: Light Bowgun

The Lance has languished as one of the least used weapons in Monster Hunter, so if you want to be a hipster, the Lance is for you. This defense-first methodical weapon has received some buffs in Wilds, including the new Triple Thrust move you can combo into from a regular attack chain.

There’s very little mobility to speak of, so you’ll be keeping your guard up at all times with this weapon, counter attacking with one of many options, making it one of the safest weapons to use. It also has a stylish new attack when riding a Seikret. The Lance’s focus attack sees your hunter charge forward and slam a monster’s wound with the shield before thrusting upwards, resulting in a safer focus attack compared to the other weapons.

We lean toward the Light Bowgun as an alternate option for the Lance, providing you with more range and mobility, both of which the Lance lacks, and can help you break parts off you otherwise can’t reach.

Switch Axe

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: None
• Secondary weapon: Light Bowgun or Bow

The Switch Axe is a complicated weapon with two different forms, perfect for those that value versatility and appreciate a moderate but rewarding learning curve. When attacking in Axe Mode, which has good reach, the Switch Axe builds a meter that gives you access to Sword Mode. When this meter is full enough, your hunter can switch to Sword Mode for both increased speed and power. However, there’s another gauge that puts you into an Amped State where the Sword Mode becomes even more powerful, unleashing even stronger attacks.

Depending on which mode you’re using, the Switch Axe’s focus attack called Morph Combination changes. Axe Mode leads to a hefty finisher attack, while Sword Mode leads to the potent and classic Elemental Discharge as a finisher when a wound is hit.

The only downside to the Switch Axe is a lack of ranged options. Taking any of the ranged weaponry as a second type isn’t a bad idea as a result, though we lean toward the agile Light Bowgun and Bow over the Heavy Bowgun.

Insect Glaive

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: None
• Secondary weapon: Sword & Shield

The Insect Glaive is the most complicated weapon in the game, featuring flashy movesets that some players will certainly want to learn. When entering Focus Mode, your hunter can nab essence – little colored buffs – off monsters by aiming your little insect pall (called a Kinsect). Different combinations of essences provide different buffs.

The Insect Glaive itself is a highly mobile weapon that frequently sends your hunter spinning through the air, allowing for multiple opportunities to mount monsters and reach high-up wounds. Even experienced hunters struggle learning this weapon, so only commit to it if you’re ready for a challenge.

The focus attack move, called Leaping Strike, has your hunter stab at a monster. If you connect with a wound, your hunter leaps back and fires the Kinsect, piercing through the monster and collecting essence.

You might want something more straightforward with some solid defenses while keeping up the agile playstyle to pair with your Insect Glaive. The best choice for this is the Sword & Shield, which you can switch to if you’re struggling against more chaotic monsters.

Heavy Bowgun

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: Yes
• Secondary weapon: Light Bowgun or Great Sword

Fans of big explosions and long-ranged attacks will want to invest time learning the Heavy Bowgun. The Heavy Bowgun hasn’t changed much from past iterations, but it does have a few new tools, including the Wyvern Counter that is great at staggering monsters if they get too close.

This counter uses the same gauge that other moves use, making this more difficult to manage alongside selecting ammo types. Making things easier is the Auto-Guard feature that automatically blocks during certain attack animations. However, you still have to manually guard to trigger a Perfect Guard. Finally, you can use most of your attacks while mounted on a Seikret.

The Focus Blast attack with the Heavy Bowgun is called Wyvern Howl, and it’s actually a special ammo type that does extra damage to a monster’s wounds.

Alternate weapons for the Heavy Bowgun include the Light Bowgun if you want to go all-in with ranged weaponry and special ammo types. Similarly, the Great Sword is a viable option if you want something versatile to carve a monster up when they’re low on health.

Long Sword

• Beginner friendly: Yes
• Guarding: None
• Secondary weapon: Light Bowgun or Sword & Shield

The Long Sword is easy to pick up and difficult to master. Specific attacks will charge up a Spirit Gauge, which your Hunter can then use to unleash powerful Spirit Blade attacks. The Long Sword’s range is great and it features quite a lot of verticality, meaning you jump up high and hit those hard-to-reach wounds. Capcom haven’t changed a lot this time around but instead added some new moves to build the Spirit Gauge quicker, meaning you will do more damage quicker, as well as giving you the ability to cancel out of the high-flying Helm Breaker attack.

Likewise, the focus attack for the Long Sword is a thrust attack that builds Spirit Gauge levels depending on how many wounds and weak points you manage to hit.

It’s difficult to choose a weapon to pair with the Long Sword as it’s pretty good in all situations, though it does lack range and defense. Therefore, bringing along a weapon like the Light Bowgun or Sword & Shield may help with certain phases of stronger monsters.

Dual Blades

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: None
• Secondary weapon: Sword & Shield

The Dual Blades are for aggressive players that want to go on the offensive all the time. Extremely agile weapons, they tear down monsters with flurries of hits that can be increased in power through entering Demon Mode, though you’ll quickly drain stamina when using it. You can also pair Demon Mode with Archdemon Mode if you build a separate gauge by attacking, adding another layer of power.

Of course, managing all these gauges and different modes is rather difficult on a weapon with very little defense to speak of, so the Dual Blades should be reserved for those that have experience with action games.

The Dual Blade’s focus attack will send you spinning across a monster’s body if you hit a wound, dealing massive damage to other wounds you nick, while also being one of the flashiest moves in the game.

Consider pairing the Dual Blades with the Sword & Shield to maintain some speed while swapping out power for defense.

Hunting Horn

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: None
• Secondary weapon: Hammer or Light Bowgun

The Hunting Horn is primarily a support weapon that has blunt, hammer-like attacks. If you’re planning on playing Monster Hunter Wilds with friends, consider picking this up as a primary or secondary weapon. The Hunting Horn has within it a pseudo-mini-game, allowing you to cast party-wide buffs by using certain attacks to channel melodies.

It also features Echo Bubbles, which are AoE buffs for you and your friends. It’s easy enough to pick up how the Hunting Horn works, but it’s difficult to wrap your head around initially as you’ll have to memorize many inputs to make the most use of it.

The focus attack for the Hunting Horn is quite amusing. If you hit a wound, you’ll play your Hunting Horn like a guitar. Timing your inputs correctly provides melodies for buffing.

Consider using the Hammer with the Hunting Horn when you need to deal massive damage, like when a monster is wounded and fleeing, or the Light Bowgun to provide support to your friends when you’ve already buffed them up.

Gunlance

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: Yes
• Secondary weapon: Long Sword or Light Bowgun

The Gunlance is a weapon with offense and defense in equal measure but limited range and mobility. It can be a little difficult to keep up with faster monsters, but against bigger brutes the Gunlance comes in handy as it has some of the strongest defensive tools in the game. It’s one of the few weapons that allows you to Perfect Guard in the middle of combos as well as when you reload.

The Gunlance also provides incredible burst damage when given an opening. Monster Hunter Wilds makes it much easier to shell enemies as you can move more freely and weave shelling into combos. What’s more, the Gunlance also received a new attack in the form of Wyrmstake Full Blast.

The focus attack for the Gunlance is the Drake Auger, which if you hit a monster’s wound, will cause you to drill into the monster for massive damage, finishing with a Wyrmstake Cannon shot.

As a methodical and slow weapon, you’ll likely want something more agile to bring with you on hunts like the Long Sword, or maybe a Light Bowgun to be able to hit hard-to-reach wounds.

Charge Blade

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: Yes
• Secondary weapon: Light Bowgun

Not to be confused with the Switch Axe, the Charge Blade also has two modes, except this time the Sword Mode comes with a shield and the Axe Mode is a powerful spinning blade. When attacking enemies in Sword Mode, you’ll charge phials seen in the top left of the screen, which you can later use to enhance Axe Mode attacks.

The Switch Axe is a great weapon to focus on learning because it truly has everything, including guarding and reach. It’s a highly technical and satisfying weapon with significant changes from previous games that make the powerful Axe Mode last longer.

The focus attack now provides the quickest way for you to switch from Sword Mode to Axe Mode. If you hit a wound with it, you’ll automatically transition and grind the monster with the axe for great damage.

While difficult to master, the Charge Blade doesn’t have much in the way of weaknesses. That said, bringing along a Light Bowgun on hunts to hit hard-to-reach wounds isn’t a bad idea.

Light Bowgun

• Beginner friendly: Yes
• Guarding: None
• Secondary weapon: Heavy Bowgun or any melee weapon

This is a much more agile version of the Heavy Bowgun that utilizes ammo to deal with specific monster types and apply status effects. While it does have less range than its heavy cousin, it’s easy to pick up and now comes with a powerful Rapid Fire ability that allows you to fire off multiple shots in quick succession. It’s a great secondary weapon to bring along with you on hunts, especially when hunting for a specific body part, as it can reach areas on monsters that most melee weapons cannot.

The focus attack for the Light Bowgun is straightforward: hold down the input to deal massive damage to an enemy’s wound.

If you want to go all-in on range, swapping between the Heavy Bowgun and Light Bowgun is a fun way to play Monster Hunter Wilds, as both excel at different things. Otherwise, pretty much every melee weapon pairs with the Light Bowgun, except the highly mobile ones like the Insect Glaive.

Bow

• Beginner friendly: No
• Guarding: None
• Secondary weapon: Great Sword, Switch Axe, or Long Sword

The Bow is the best ranged weapon to focus on with an incredible amount of versatility in Monster Hunter Wilds, receiving a massive buff with the Trick Arrow Gauge. Instead of using consumable coatings, you now build the Trick Arrow Gauge by attacking enemies.

These include Tracer Arrows which automatically make your successive arrows hone in on monsters. Building the gauge for these special arrow types takes a lot of skill as you have to perfect dodge and juggle a few different mechanics, making this weapon a bit more difficult to learn than something like the Light Bowgun.

The focus attack for the Bow is called Hailstorm, which fires a hail of arrows at a monster you’ve pegged with a Tracer Arrow. After that, you automatically follow up with a powerful attack.

We expect many players to pair the Bow with one of the more versatile melee weapons, such as the Great Sword, Switch Axe, or Long Sword, to give their Hunter the most utility possible.

And that’s our rundown of all 14 weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds. Don’t forget to read our guide on the Monster Hunter Wilds characters who you’ll meet in the upcoming PC game. Once you’ve figured it all out, you might crave another challenge, so be sure to check out the games like Monster Hunter on PC that you can play right now.