This is the first set I ever made and is meant for farming materials. It consists of 3 piece Kirin and 2 piece Legiana, specifically for the set bonuses Capture Master and Good Luck. I highly recommend this set when you are just starting out. Not so useful in late game, when you pretty much have every material out there.

Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Capture Master
  
• Good Luck
  
• Ice resistance lv3
  
• Blight resistance lv3
  
• Marathon Runner lv3
  
• Divine Blessing lv3
  
• Airborne lv1
  
• Free Meal lv1
  
• Protective Polish lv1

A full Nergigante set, this was designed with pure offense in mind. The Nergigante set bonus is not really helpful given that a hammer with lifesteal augmentation can heal you very fast, but because Nergigante armor has many offensive skills, I went with it and treated the set bonus as a bonus skill.

Attack boost lv7, agitator lv5 and weakness exploit lv3 to bring the pain to the monsters. And given that hammer consumes stamina for charged attacks, stamina surge lv3 allows you to gain it back quickly so you can unleash another charged attack. Affinity sliding because I love the sliding attacks, and under the right conditions you'll be getting 100% affinity. Flinch free lv2 from Impact Charm 2 because of grief caused by teammates interrupting my big bang combo. You're free to use other charms if you wish.


Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Hasten Recovery
  
• Attack boost lv7
  
• Agitator lv5
  
• Weakness exploit lv3
  
• Stamina surge lv3
  
• Affinity sliding lv1
  
• Flinch free lv2

This set I made for face tanking the likes of Tempered Deviljho and Behemoth. Consists of 4 piece Uragaan for the set bonus Guard Up, just so you can block anything and everything (except for Behemoth's horn attack). As the stereotypical tank, you'll need both this skill and Guard lv5. This is made primarily for gunlance so I have socketed in jewels for Capacity Boost and Protective Polish and equipped the Artillery Charm 3 for Artillery. You can adjust the skills you want accordingly if you use other weapons.

Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Guard Up
  
• Guard lv5
  
• Partbreaker lv3
  
• Artillery lv3
  
• Speed Sharpening lv3
  
• Capacity Boost lv1
  
• Free Meal lv1
  
• Protective Polish lv1

This set is basically an upgrade to the one above, with more skills to make you a better tank. Along with the standard guard up, guard lv5, artillery lv3 and capacity boost, you'll get Stamina Cap Up from luna's 2-piece set bonus and health boost lv3 so you can take more hits, be it to your shield or to your face.

Focus lv3 is there specially for long type gunlances (which I use a lot) as it cuts down the charge time for charged shelling. You can swap them out for other skills if you're not using a long type gunlance. 3 level 2 slots should be enough for most skills. [Fun fact: Long type gunlance charged shelling has extra 20% stagger damage. Wyvern fire is 35%]

Mind's Eye so you won't bounce your guard poke before you start charged shelling, evade extender for letting you hop greater distances and protective polish so you can go wild shelling for that 1 minute after sharpening, are all for quality of life.

Wide range lv2, agitator lv2 and tool specialist lv2 are all collateral skills from some of the luna pieces used to get those set bonuses. Still cool but you can pretty much ignore them or treat them as bonus skills. If you are playing slapstick then you may consider maxing out agitator instead of focus.


Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Stamina Cap up
  
• Mind's eye
  
• Guard lv5
  
• Health boost lv3
  
• Focus lv3
  
• Artillery lv3
  
• Evade extender lv3
  
• Agitator lv2
  
• Wide range lv2
  
• Tool specialist lv2
  
• Capacity Boost
  
• Guard Up
  
• Protective Polish

Same as the endgame tanking build, this one has the skills for extra stamina and health pool. It's a pretty basic build, with guard lv5 and guard up. Mind's eye as well, since you will actually be using it to poke the monster. Weakness exploit for that extra potential damage from crits. Handicraft lv5 for that sweet white sharpness. Evade extender is not maxed in favor of getting flinch free instead, because of those pesky long sword and dual blade users constantly interrupting my attacks. You can replace it for a maxed evade extender if you're going solo.


Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Stamina Cap up
  
• Handicraft lv5
  
• Guard lv5
  
• Health boost lv3
  
• Weakness exploit lv3
  
• Evade extender lv2
  
• Flinch free lv1
  
• Mind's eye
  
• Guard up

This set I made for supporting the party via healing and buffs. Very useful for Lunastra and Behemoth. The only set bonus this has is Stamina Cap Up from 2 piece Lunastra. As with all healing support sets, this comes with the essential skills Wide Range, Speed Eating and Free Meal, with the optional but very much recommended Mushroomancer. It also comes with skills to increase survivability such as Health Boost and Divine Blessing, because the only good healer is a live one. Recommended weapon would be Sword and Shield for using items on the go. In this case I used the Girros SnS for supporting the party by paralyzing the monster from time to time.

Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Stamina Cap Up
  
• Wide Range lv5
  
• Health Boost lv3
  
• Speed Eating lv3
  
• Mushroomancer lv3
  
• Divine Blessing lv3
  
• Free Meal lv1
  
• Protective Polish lv1
  
• Airborne lv1

*update*

Replaced Commission Jacket B with the Brigade Suit B. This sacrifices 6 defense but retains the 2 skills that Commission Jacket B has, and gives an extra lv2 slot. Also replaced Mushroom Charm 2 with Glutton's Charm 3 and Empress Greaves A to Empress Greaves B to enable better optimization of skills.


Skills are largely unchanged from the first version, just that due to more optimized decoration socketing there are more additions such as Flinch Free lv1 so that adjacent teammates will not interrupt your eating/drinking, Minds Eye to prevent your infinite basic attack combos from bouncing in order to build up status, and Guard Up to make you a sub tank (I've played both healer and tank roles at the same time in Behemoth with this set). Airborne's 10% damage boost to jumping attacks does not apply to the falling shield bash, as such it is replaced with Affinity Sliding in favor of that 30% affinity when you get a chance to slide.

Personally, I chose to socket in these skills mainly for quality of life. However if you do not wish to have these few skills, then you may change it up as you see fit, such as having Item Prolonger as I have seen in many support builds.

Decorations as follows:



Here is the item loadout I recommend when using this set

Includes:

• Potion
  
• Mega Potion
  
• Antidote
  
• Ration
  
• Dung pod
  
• Flash pod
  
• Flashbug
  
• Powercharm & Talon
  
• Armorcharm & Talon
  
• Blue Mushroom (Lifepowder)
  
• Mandragora (Max Potion, not sharable via Wide Range)
  
• Nitroshroom (Demondrug)
  
• Devil's Blight (Dash Juice)
  
• Parashroom (Armorskin)
  
• Toadstool (Immunizer)
  
• Nulberry
  
• Astera Jerky

(New to this weapon class? Want to try it out but don't know how to utilize it to its full potential? Just check out my guide here on how to Charge Blade for an in depth explanation on the hows of this powerful weapon.)


As with all Charge Blade users, there's gotta be the Diablos Tyrannis in their collection, being the most powerful non-elemental CB, with its power further augmented by the skill Non-elemental Boost, which you can gain by having 4 piece Diablos, or with the Elementless Jewel 2 decoration. While I won't say this is the best set out there, this is the set that works for me. Recommended to augment this weapon with Attack Increase, which can increase the damage of the Super Amped Element Discharge, and Health Regen which means you never have to sheathe your weapon to heal as long as you can land the full hit of the SAED.

Note that affinity does not increase damage from SAED, but raw attack does (at least for impact phial Charge Blades). Hence the attack boost lv7. Weakness exploit is there mainly for the axe hit of the SAED. It does incredible damage, especially when you go for the head. Artillery lv3 increases the power of each burst of the SAED by 30%, couple that with capacity boost and you get a whopping 180% damage boost if you land the full hit of the SAED (with 6 phials charged).

Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Attack Boost lv7
  
• Weakness Exploit lv3
  
• Artillery lv3
  
• Flinch Free lv2
  
• Capacity Boost lv1
  
• Non-elemental Boost lv1

*update*

Replace dober greaves with AT Nerg greaves to maintain attack boost lv7 and get 2 lv2 decoration slots.
Also replace Diablos Tyrannis 2 with Taroth Strongarm 'Horn' for that extra defense bonus and that sweet solid gold look.
Socket in Mind's Eye if possible so that you won't bounce even if you overcharge your sword. Guard up is useful to block things like Teostra's supernova.

All Kjárr weapons come with either Critical Status or Critical Element. This set is made for the sole purpose of activating that effect. I went with the AT Teostra 3-piece to activate the set bonus Master's Touch so you don't have to worry about sharpening halfway through the fight, and to get maxed Critical Eye. AT Zorah chest mainly for the 3 level 1 slots to enable you to socket in status or element decorations, and also partially for the tremor resist (looking at you, Greatest Jagras).

That's all for the most part. All I needed now is a skirt to complement the skills. That's where the AT Kulve skirt comes in. It already has weakness exploit lv1 and critical boost lv1 to further increase your crit damage. It also comes with a level 3 slot to max out tremor resist, or socket in something else to suit other purposes.


Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Master's Touch
  
• Critical Eye lv7
  
• Tremor Resist lv3
  
• Paralysis Attack lv3 (you can change it up depending on your weapon of choice)
  
• Weakness exploit lv3
  
• Critical Boost lv2
  
• Maximum Might lv2
  
• Free Meal
  
• Mind's eye
  
• Critical Status/Element (On Kjárr weapons)

Now, I'm not very familiar with the bow. That said, I am keen on learning and thus threw together whatever pieces of armor I already possess into a somewhat reasonable bow build.

Attack boost lv6 because I don't have enough slots to max it. Can be maxed if you use a bow with a lv1 slot or augment it as such. Constitution lv5 for dash dancing, which has much higher DPS than just spamming Dragon Piercer. Weakness exploit lv3 for that extra DPS. Stamina surge lv3 to minimize your downtime recovering stamina. Normal shots, spread/power shots and bow charge plus are the core skills a bow usually requires.


Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Hasten Recovery
  
• Attack boost lv6
  
• Constitution lv5
  
• Weakness Exploit lv3
  
• Stamina Surge lv3
  
• Normal shots
  
• Spread/power shots
  
• Bow charge plus
  

Similar to the one above, but this build sacrifices the attack boost lv6 for larger stamina pool from the Lunastra 2 piece set bonus, because the bow is a very stamina hungry weapon. Also has health boost lv3 for increased survivability because bow users tend to be glass cannons. Critical boost is a nice bonus that comes with the Kulve Taroth waist, and Special Ammo Boost is a replacement for Pierce shots up in case you want to use the Dragon Piercer. Power prolonger is a useless skill on the Xeno gloves, but I've chosen to use it because of the 3 decoration slots, which you can use to socket in the various elemental decorations that matches your bow. Critical element is not built into the armor here because it would already be on the Kjárr bow.


Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Stamina Cap Up
  
• Constitution lv5
  
• Health Boost lv3
  
• *element skill lv3* (whatever element your bow is)
  
• Weakness Exploit lv3
  
• Evade Extender lv2
  
• Normal shots
  
• Spread/power shots
  
• Critical Boost lv1
  
• Power Prolonger lv1 (can ignore this)
  
• Special Ammo Boost
  
• Bow charge plus
  
• Critical Element/Status (on Kjárr bow)

As I've read, it seems Bows really shine when they have their elemental damage maxed with critical element. In order to get critical element as a set bonus, I chose to get the Rathalos Mail B for it's Weakness Exploit lv2, and the Azure Starlord Gauntlets because all the other pieces of armor have unfavorable skills to me.

This build, as with the one above, is not a full crit build, only relying on Weakness Exploit and the Bow's innate affinity to crit, all in favor of a larger health and stamina pool. Recovery Up lv3 is particularly useful for ranged users as they take more damage from melee attacks, and this skill allows you to heal more with a single potion to decrease your downtime. Unable to max Constitution so it's left at lv3, meaning that you'll need to use a Dash Juice to get to the cap of stamina reduction. Evade extender is useful for the charging sidestep, to get you out of the way of most monsters' charge attacks.


Skills you will get if you follow this build:

• Stamina Cap Up
  
• Critical Element
  
• Health Boost lv3
  
• Recovery Up lv3
  
• *element skill lv3* (from charm, whatever element your bow is)
  
• Weakness Exploit lv3
  
• Constitution lv3
  
• Evade Extender lv2
  
• Normal shots
  
• Spread/power shots
  
• Bow charge plus
  

Build explanation starts at 13:40