You will officially be able to unlock High Rank quests and expeditions after you have taken down Zo Shia and captured your first Yian Kut-Ku in Monster Hunter Wilds. High Rank is where the game truly opens up, and there are a lot of new systems and features that become available which can get rather overwhelming for those who are new to the Monster Hunter franchise.
Apart from the difficulty spike, here are some of the other things that you will need to be aware of as soon as you reach High Rank in the RPG.
New features unlocked in Monster Hunter Wilds High Rank
Here are some of the new features that you need to be aware of as soon you unlock High Rank in Monster Hunter Wilds:
1) Nata becomes an item trader
Every town or settlement that you visit in Wilds has a trader who you can interact with to exchange items. Once High Rank unlocks, you will be use Nata to trade with every NPC that offers you trades. You will no longer have to visit particular regions and interact with the specific NPC to exchange items.
This is a very convenient way of stocking up on cooking materials which will let you make specific custom meals.
Moreover, through Nata, you also unlock resource farming. Currently, you will get five particular NPCs who will help you with the system:
- Rysher
- Murtabak
- Apar
- Plumpeach
- Sabar
You will be able to unlock them by completing their specific side quests. Once you have access to them, you can use them through Nata, and task them to gather resources from a predesignated list of items.
2) Support Ship lets you request goods
The Support Ship NPC, Santiago, can be found in the Windward Plains Base Camp and will let you buy items with the use of Guild Points as well as request goods. There are three types of goods that you will be able to request by interacting with him:
- Medicinal Items: These consist of very effective medicinal items that will help you out in hunts by helping you stay alive.
- Equipment Materials: These will provide you with materials that let you forge weapons and armor. We recommend that you keep this option for the later stages of the game, as you can use excess materials to make Armor Spheres or materials for your Artian upgrades.
- Misc. Item: These will usually let you purchase trade-in materials that you can then use to get cooking items by interacting with Nata.
3) Bonfire Cooking in the Wudwud village
During the start of the Plenty weather condition, all the Wudwuds will gather at the top of their village around a bonfire. There will be a chef Wudwud called Chomber who will let you trade certain resources for rare food. You can then throw in all the resources that you don’t need into the bonfire, and gain items in return.
Moreover, you can also talk to the other Wudwuds around the bonfire and they will offer you free items. You will notice that they will have a Yellow Exclamation mark over them, so interact with them when you get the chance.
To know when the Wudwuds are going to gather around the bonfire, you will need to look out for multiple question marks over their village. As mentioned, this will usually occur at the start of the Plenty cycle.
4) Smelting Foundry in the Oilwell Basin
You can now smelt Armor Spheres by making your way to Roqul in the Oilwell Basin camp. The Armor Sphere you want to make will have a definite point requirement and you make them by exchanging monster parts and other items. Heavy Armor Spheres are the most expensive and will require 5000 points to just make one of them.
Armor Spheres are used to upgrade the defensive stats of the amors that you have crafted. You will need a lot of Armor Spheres to max out the defense level of the highest rarity armor in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Additionally, you will also be able to smelt ores by talking to the NPC as well. Ores like Argecite and Oricalcite are what are used to upgrade your Artian Weapons. So as you slowly reach the end-game content, Roqul will become one of your most important NPCs.
5) Meld Decorations in Suja
While you unlock Wyverian Melding in the later half of your Low Rank journey, the ability to meld level 1 and level 2 decorations is something that is made available in High Rank. You will need to reach particular HR levels for this, and there are a lot of Decos that you will be able to directly meld instead of having to just wait for RnG to provide it to you.
So if you have a particular build in mind, make sure that you visit the melder often in Suja.
Moreover, you can also look to Meld Relics and pick the Ancient Weapon Fragment option as it will let you get your hands on rarity 8 artians. So if you are running low on discs or tubes, feel free to use this system.
Artian Weapons System explained in Monster Hunter Wilds High Rank
Artian Weapons is where your endgame progression lies in Monster Hunter Wilds. They are quite different from how the Safi’jiiva weapons worked in Worlds, as the idea behind the new feature is to allow you to custom-make your weapon.
You forge your Artian Weapons by talking to Gemma and investing in certain parts that you have collected by laying Tempered Monster. Here is a complete guide on everything you need to know about the Artian system in Monster Hunter Wilds:
How to unlock Artian Weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds
To be able to unlock Artian Weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds, you will need to play the post-game missions till you reach the end of Chapter 4 of the main mission, it will be called “Wyvern Sparks and Rose Thorns” which will be a Tempered Lala Barina hunt which will be the first Tempered Monster introduced in the game.
Once you beat the monster, you will obtain the materials to craft your first Artian weapon. Once you have the materials head over to Gemma.
How to build an Artian Weapon in Monster Hunter Wilds
Once you make your way to Gemma, she will now unlock the option to make Artian weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds. The process involves assembling three out of four possible components. These components include:
- Blades
- Tubes
- Discs
- Devices
The components will come with their own unique stats and will offer either Attack or the Affinity of the weapon once it’s crafted. At times they can also offer specific elements or special conditions, which can help make a specialized build for a particular hunt.
However, do note, that the element you want on your Artian weapon will heavily depend on the to of components that you are using. If the parts you are using have three different elements, then the resulting weapon will not get an elemental damage type.
Here is a list of the recipe or rather the components needed for each Artian weapon type in Monster Hunter Wilds:
| Weapon Type | Recipe |
|---|---|
| Great Sword | Blade + Blade + Tube |
| Long Sword | Blade + Tube + Tube |
| Switch Axe | Blade + Blade + Device |
| Charge Blade | Blade + Disc + Device |
| Insect Glaive | Blade + Tube + Device |
| Dual Blades | Blade + Blade + Disc |
| Sword And Shield | Blade + Tube + Disc |
| Lance | Blade + Disc + Disc |
| Gunlance | Disc + Disc + Device |
| Hunting Horn | Disc + Device + Device |
| Hammer | Disc + Disc + Tube |
| Light Bowgun | Tube + Device + Device |
| Heavy Bowgun | Disc + Tube + Device |
| Bow | Tube + Tube + Device |
How to Reinforcing Artian Weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds
Every Artian weapon in Monster Hunter Wilds can be reinforced a total of five times. You will need to use special minerals like Argecite and Oricalcite to do this, and you get the resource by either farming it through exploration, smelting it through Roqul, or dismantling other Artian weapons.
When you reinforce an Artian Weapon, every level they get will provide them with a random bonus on one of its stats. So there is a fair bit of RnG involved in this process.
How to farm Artian Materials in Monster Hunter Wilds
Artian materials are obtained by killing Tempered Monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds. The best way to farm these Tempered Monster will be through Investigations. You can invest Guild Points to save a previous hunt and then repeat it three more times to make the most of it.
The main RnG here is to get the quest that offers you the most amount of bonuses. Apart from this, you will also need to look for the monster that has the rarity you need for the type of Artian material that you want.
Here is a list of all the weapon fragments along with their rarity and the monsters that they drop fro:
| Artian Weapon Fragment | Rarity | Obtained from |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient Weapon Fragment | Rarity 7 | This is the red part that becomes Rarity 8 and is obtained from 7-star Tempered Monsters and above. |
| Rusted Weapon Shard | Rarity 6 | This is the pink part that becomes Rarity 7 and is obtained from 6-star Tempered Monsters and above. |
| Damaged Weapon Shard | Rarity 5 | This is the white part that becomes Rarity 6 and is obtained from 5 and 6-star Tempered Monsters and above. |
Investigations, end-game farm, and map cycling in Monster Hunter Wilds
Here is how your end-game systems and loop are going to work in Monster Hunter Wilds:
1) Investigations
You look at the map and see what you want to hunt. You then scroll through the monsters who are currently present in the area and see the materials that they drop when you hunt them. If that material is what you need for your quest, then you have three options that you will get after selecting the monster:
- Begin Field Survey
- Save as Investigation
- Set Waypoint
If you begin a Field Survey, you will automatically start a hunt ques there your Seikret will auto-track the monster your goal will either be to slay or capture it.
If you Save as Investigation, then you will be able to boot up this very mission a total of three times. This is quite useful if the monster is providing a certain part for quest completion and you need multiple of those. This is where Artian material farming also comes in as you can then save up investigations of higher rarity Tempered monsters who are offering multiple bonus rewards.
You can boot up all of your saved investigations by talking to Alma and heading over to the Investigations option.
2) Map Cycling
If there is a monster that you want to farm but it only comes out at a particular time of the day or during a particular weather condition you can use the Map Cycling feature to make them available on the map. To cycle the map you will need to make your way inside the tent in either the Base Camp or a Pop-up camp and then cycle to the Rest option.
Here you will be able to change the environment to either Plenty, Fallow, or Inclemency. If you want to beat an apex like Rey Dau, you will need to put the map state in Inclemency. You can also change the time of day to only bring out monsters who come out at that time.
3) Using the training area for end-game build testing
Once you have started getting your hands on Artian weapons, proper armor, and the ideal decos, you will need to start testing your build. The best way to do this will be in the Training Area, but we recommend that you enable two settings in particular when testing your numbers:
Display Without Coefficient (under the Weapon Attack Power Display)
This feature will display the base attack power of your weapon without using coefficients. If you have the coefficient on, the number you get for any weapon on the training dummy will be bloated, this is not an accurate representation of how effective it will be against a monster.
When you disable the coefficient, you will get a more accurate representation of your numbers making it easier to compare DPS values between weapons and builds.
Display with Decimal (under Damage Numbers)
Turn this on only when testing a build in the Training Area. It can be quite annoying to use this in a regular hunt. With the decimals showing you will have a more accurate read of the damage comparisons between weapons and builds.
