Choose Your Weapon #2: Ranged Weapons in Monster Hunter: World

Yesterday I covered the various melee options available to hunters in Monster Hunter: World, and today we will focus on the ranged weaponry of Monster Hunter. Ranged (Gunner) weapons are a little bit more complicated than melee (Blademaster) weapons and take several different mechanics into consideration.

While blademaster weapons deal either cutting or blunt damage, alongside elemental or status damage (or no secondary damage at all), gunner weapons all deal raw shot damage, status damage, or elemental damage, depending on what kind of ammo you have equipped. Every gun can equip a limited list of ammo types, and it's a gunner's job to carry the right ammo for their gun - and to carry the right gun for the hunt. Shot damage differs from blunt and cutting damage, having different hitzones (defenses) to worry about, and different calculations. Gunner weapons also don't have to worry about sharpness. Instead, they have to worry about critical distance in addition to the game's crit mechanics explained previously.

There are only three gunner weapons: the light bowgun, the heavy bowgun, and the bow. The light bowgun and heavy bowgun are quite similar to one another -- both are large rifles equipped with different ammo types and a few distinct differences in playstyle. The bow, on the other hand, is a vastly different ranged weapon, relying on a charging mechanic for each shot, and a series of arrow coatings rather than ammo types to apply additional damage.

I'll go over some of the more crucial game mechanics for aspiring gunners before hopping into the weapon overview, giving any new hunter the insight they need to jump right into gunning while catching veterans up on the major changes World introduced.

How to Gun in Monster Hunter: World

Gunning has changed quite a bit in Monster Hunter: World. In the past, gunning was a delicate balancing act of finding a good opening, exploiting critical distance, and getting off a series of shots while still finding the time to move out of an incoming attack. With MH:W, bowgunners now have the ability to shoot while walking - it might sound simple, but this revolutionary change completely overhauls gunning playstyles, especially given how immobile the heavy bowgun used to be.

In the past, pressing the attack button (triangle on the PS2/PSP, X on the 3DS) rooted the player into the ground, and triggered the firing animation for their weapon. After the recoil of every shot, movement may be resumed, making positioning extremely important for gunning - and making fast, charging monsters like Tigrex and Diablos an absolute pain to fight with a gun. In Monster Hunter: World, pulling the trigger on a bowgun slows down your movement but allows you to continue circling around a monster as you shoot from the hip. Holding the left trigger gives you a zoomed-in over-the-shoulder third-person perspective - in the past, tapping the left trigger gave you a first-person view through a scope. This is gone in MH:W.

Much like in previous games, both archers and bowgunners still have to select and apply/load their coatings/ammo. Ammo is stored in extra gunner inventory space, and can be cycled through by holding the left bumper and tapping the attack or dodge buttons (triangle and cross on the PS4).

Using the default scheme, hitting triangle reloads your ammo, while hitting the right trigger shoots with it. You can only carry as much ammo as you bring with you, with the exception of Normal Shot Lv. 1, which is infinite (but does negligible damage). The amount of ammo you can hold in a clip before reloading, and the ammo types you can load into your gun at all, depend on the gun. The equipment screen will show you all you need to know about your gun's capabilities. This also includes the gun's Recoil, Deviation (accuracy) and Reload Speed.

Both light bowguns and heavy bowguns can equip different gun mods at the smithy, lowering recoil, deviation or reload speed, or increasing damage at close or long range.

Armor has changed in MH:W to simplify the previously tedious issue of making two separate sets for gunners and blademasters -- instead, your armor set stats change based on whether you're equipping a gunner weapon or a blademaster weapon, and gunner armor sets still have traditionally less defense than blademaster sets to make up for the defensive advantage that range provides.

Using a bowgun or bow effectively means equipping the right gun or bow for the job, carrying the right ammo, cycling to it, and letting loose.

Explaining Hitzones

Monster Hunter: World's inclusion of damage indicators after every hit has made identifying and internalizing hitzones easier than ever. Every monster in Monster Hunter has a different defense value on each body part - meaning your attacks will do more or less damage depending on whether you smack the head, tail, front legs, back legs, back, chest, wings, etc.

Every monster's hitzone has a value, which modifies whatever attack you just dealt. For example, a hitzone of 15 will mean only 15% of the damage dealt to the monster will be subtracted from its HP pool, and only 15% of your total attack will be indicated through the damage indicators. On the other hand, monsters often have "soft spots" with hitzones of 45 and above, where you deal the most raw damage. This is visually indicated by both higher numbers, as well as a larger spray of blood and greater hitlag (your attack will feel drawn out, and more satisfying). Hitzones differ for cutting, blunt and shot damage, meaning the best spot for a greatsword to hit on a monster may not be the best spot for a hammer or gunner to hit.

For gunners, hitzones are incredibly important to ensure that you keep up with blademasters, and even outdo them. Shot hitzones are different from slashing and blunt hitzones, and elemental hitzones are another thing entirely. Only status attacks/shots ignore hitzones, except KO damage which only applies to the head.

Shots can travel through a monster, striking several hitzones at once. Pierce Shots are used to take advantage of several hitzones with low defense values strung together, so as to maximize damage. Light bowgunners, who specialize in elemental damage, will need to remember both the shot hitzones and elemental hitzones of a monster, and aim for different bodyparts depending on what ammo they're currently using.

What is Critical Distance?

While ranged weaponry implies hunting from a distance, bowgunners and archers need to take care not to put too much distance between themselves and the monster. Going into the over-the-shoulder aiming mode will show you a little red circle around your aiming reticle for when you are within critical distance of a monster. While the exact numbers aren't out yet, critical distance has always been an attack modifier that allows you to do as much as 150% more damage, or as little as just 50% damage, depending on how far or close you are. Too close is bad, and too far is worse. But stay in just the right distance, and you'll make quick work of the monster. This goes for bow users and bowgun users alike.

Every ammo type has its own critical distance, although some ammo types share a range. In the past, elemental ammo types were unique in having no critical distance, but this seems to have changed in World. Additionally, because of the new mechanic of being able to move while shooting, your critical distance for a volley of shots (specifically light bowgun's Rapid Fire) is calculated from the first shot. Even if you move out of critical distance for subsequent shots in Rapid Fire, they all count as having the same critical distance as the first shot.

Note that critical distance and critical damage are two separate things. Your shots have a chance to crit (125% damage) if your gun/bow's affinity is over 0%, and you can get a negative crit/feeble hit (75% damage) if your affinity is below 0%. Your affinity determines your chances at critting.

Coatings & Ammo Types

A bow without coatings is almost like a gun without additional ammo - the bow's own charged shots just don't deal enough damage, and the bonuses from coatings are what makes the bow a versatile and powerful weapon to use on the field. Ammo types are the same thing for bowguns - each gun can only hold a few different ammo types, and knowing what they're for is key to properly utilizing your bowgun. Here's a simple little table explaining what each coating/ammo type does.

Coatings

Note that you can't equip all coatings with one bow and that a bow's elemental damage gets overriden by a status coating for that shot.

Ammo Types

Note that, just like the bow, a bowgun will only be able to load some of these ammo types. Every bowgun has its own clip sizes for these ammo types, as well.

Light Bowgun

The light bowgun sacrifices raw attack value for greater mobility, and an affinity for elemental and status shots. Although raw gunning has always been a niche for light bowgunners, the light bowgun is at its most effective when it either takes advantage of elemental ammo, or when it strings together paralysis and sleep shots with sticky ammo for KOs, cluster ammo for damage, and traps and bombs for further monster lockdown.

Aside from the ability to load ammo, shoot, and move quickly, every light bowgun has an ammo type that it can Rapid Fire. This means that when shooting with that ammo type, you shoot three times in a row in quick succession using just one shot. Each of the 3 shots deals less damage than a regular shot, but the overall DPS of hitting all three outdoes a single shot while saving on ammo. Rapid Fire lets you dish out just a little bit more damage while taking advantage of elemental hitzones to a greater degree.

A new feature for the light bowgun is Wyvernblast, a special ammo type of which you can carry three at a time. This ammo type regenerates over time, and cannot be crafted. It allows you to place three stationary mines at a time, which can be triggered multiple times by monster attacks or your own shots, for a barrage of explosions and damage.

Heavy Bowgun

The heavy bowgun does not fire as often as the light bowgun, and is not as nimble, but carries a much greater attack value, specializing in raw shots such as Normal, Pierce and Slicing. Heavy bowgunning has not changed much, with the exception of two new special ammo types, and the removal of siege gunning.

Every heavy bowgun either has access to Wyvernheart, or Wyvernsnipe - two special ammo types that, much like Wyvernblast, regenerate over time. Wyvernheart gives you access to a Gatling gun mode for a time, firing shots off at an incredible pace, while Wyvernsnipe gives you access to a single long-range explosive shot that deals an extraordinary amount of damage.

Being less nimble than the light bowgun, the heavy bowgun user cannot sidestep or move quickly. But you can still maneuver around monsters and dish out a greater amount of sheer firepower.

Bow

The bow is much more similar to the hammer than to the bowgun, and can be approached as a mixture of close combat and ranged combat. Critical distance still applies, and archers find themselves staying quite close to monsters. Unlike the bowguns, bows do not use ammo - but they do use coatings. It's imperative to apply a coating to your arrow before you loosen it into the monster -- and it's imperative to charge your shots.

Like the hammer and greatsword, holding the block button knocks an arrow in your bow and charges it, with a total of 3 levels. Charged shots deal a lot more damage, and a level 1 or level 2 charged shot can immediately be combo'd into a level 2 or level 3 charged shot, or a sidestep, allowing you to string hops and charged shots together.

However, much like the hammer, charging a shot takes stamina. This limits the amount of charged shots you can string together. Fortunately for bow users, there are items in the game that temporarily grant you permanent stamina, letting you make the most of your bow's shots.

And that's it for now! If you're a gunner, or a blademaster aspiring to get into the world of gunning, let me know which gunner weapon you prefer and why.