Top 5 Skills you want on every build in Monster Hunter Wilds

by

In Monster Hunter Worlds, crafting structures, or “Buildcrafting,” plays an essential role in gameplay just as battling monsters does. Each installment introduces new skills and modifies existing ones to keep the strategies fresh, but there are five key abilities that consistently enhance a build.

The five Skills you want on every Monster Hunter Wilds build

Critical Eye

Sharp Observation consistently ranks as a premier Skill due to its sole function: boosting your build’s Critical Hit Chance. A Critical Hit, indicated by a vibrant pink starburst next to the damage figure, enhances an attack’s power by 25%.

In the game Monster Hunter Wilds, the Critical Eye skill isn’t as potent as it used to be. Each stack now only increases Affinity by 4%, up to a maximum of 20%. But when combined with wound damage, extra Affinity from your weapons, and other equipment, you can potentially reach an Affinity of 50% or more. Every critical hit (which occurs roughly every two instances of damage) accumulates rapidly.

As a gamer, I find it helpful when my gear with Negative Affinity gets a boost from Critical Eye. Normally, weapons with Negative Affinity have more raw power to make up for the loss of critical chance. If I land a hit in that Negative Affinity zone, I’ll deal 25% less damage. But having Critical Eye active really reduces those instances.

Weakness Exploit

In Monster Hunter Wilds, the Weakness Exploit (WEX) received a slight but still significant reduction in effectiveness. Nevertheless, it remains one of the top all-rounder perks due to its versatility, as its benefits aren’t tied to specific actions or playstyles. Regardless of how you choose to play the game, WEX will contribute to your success.

With WEX, your attacks become more effective against vulnerable spots, dealing yellow damage. This could increase your Affinity by up to 30% on a standard hit. Additionally, you receive an extra 20% Affinity bonus when attacking wounds. The advantage of WEX is that it’s always active, making every attack potentially more valuable, especially if you’re focusing on a monster’s head, limbs, or weak spots. However, it doesn’t add raw or elemental damage by itself; it only modifies the existing damage amount.

Agitator

Starting off the list, we have a frequently used endgame strategy called “Agitator“. This one stands out due to its unique activation condition which is tied to the monster’s hunt: It becomes active whenever a monster enters the Enrage state, typically following a roar. Similar to WEX and Critical Eye, it operates on a straightforward principle.

When an adversary is enraged, the Agitator skill boosts attack power by up to 20 and provides an extra 15% affinity. This, coupled with Weakness Exploit (WEX) and Critical Eye, can effortlessly bring your in-hunt affinity to 100%, requiring minimal input from you.

The main strength of an Agitator lies in its enhanced base Attack bonus. As your Attack level increases, the damage inflicted by your weapons grows accordingly. Although an extra 20 points to this stat may not appear significant at first glance, it accumulates over time and has no cap on how high you can elevate it beyond your weapon equipment limits.

Attack Boost

In the game Monster Hunter World, one of the most straightforward skills, known as Attack Boost (AB), increases your attack power just like its name suggests. What sets this skill apart at higher levels is that your attack power grows in proportion to the boost level.

At the initial three stages of AB, you gain a +3, +5, and +7 enhancement to your attack. However, levels four and five do not add a fixed bonus, but rather an incremental two percent and four percent boost to your attack instead. Interestingly, levels four and five also offer a retrospective +8 and +9 increase to your Attack stat, respectively, which is factored into the overall percentage increase.

Essentially, aim to reach Attack Boost level 4 for a significant boost in damage output. However, if reaching this level isn’t feasible, don’t worry too much about it. A few levels or even just some stacks of Attack Boost can still make a substantial difference.

Critical Boost

This Additional Skill complements the others nicely, and it performs exactly as expected – it amplifies the damage dealt in critical hits. By default, a critical hit inflicts 25% extra damage. However, with Critical Boost, this damage can be increased by up to 40% at level five.

The ability called Critical Boost is constantly active and doesn’t require any specific activation. It’s always ready for a critical hit to occur. Similar to WEX and Critical Eye, Critical Boost can’t enhance your base damage. Instead, it amplifies your existing capabilities – significantly, but if your basic damage output is weak, your critical hits will be as well.

Monster Hunter Wilds Skills we’re watching

In the latest update of Monster Hunter Wilds, several fresh abilities have been introduced, boasting significant power. Additionally, keep an eye on some veteran favorites too.

  • Burst provides a small raw and elemental damage boost on the first hit, increasing that bonus after five hits. On the right weapons (the Longsword, Dual Blades, and other fast-hitting options), it could be a real menace in the right hands.
  • Flayer makes inflicting wounds easier and automatically deals a burst of non-elemental damage once you’ve dealt enough damage of your own. Wounds are a central mechanic to hunting Monster in Wilds, making Flayer a solid contender for the top tier.
  • Resentment provides up to a flat +25 bonus to your Attack stat whenever you have red, recoverable health. This effect defined high-risk, high-reward gameplay in both Monster Hunter World and Rise, and it very well could again with Wilds.
  • Evade Window increases the number of invincibility frames you receive when dodging. At the highest levels of play, the goal is to never be hit at all, and Evade Window trades damage for safety, which is antithetical to most endgame builds. For a larger audience, it might be a better, more comfortable choice.
  • Coalescence increases your elemental damage and status buildup after you recover from a blight or status of your own. It was incredibly powerful in previous games in certain builds, regardless of the weapon you used, so I’ll be curious to see if it makes a return to form in Wilds.

It’s important to have those skills at your disposal no matter what kind of build you are aiming for. They are straightforward to grasp, simple to trigger, and will always remain relevant.

Read More

2025-03-08 19:49