Like my guide for World/Iceborne, anything I don't consider common knowledge will be bolded and underlined if you just plan on skimming the guide. Anyway let's start fresh.

If you're new this can be confusing, the simple answer is Village is singleplayer only and I would describe it as the tutorial. You can go through the whole game ignoring it if you want. The monsters in it have way less HP than the monsters in the Hub, but the Hub also has all of the content. Completing village quests can also give you special license quests that can raise your Hunter Rank in the Hub to a certain amount (I believe it caps out at 3 or 4).

As you complete quests you'll unlock side quests as NPCs want to talk to you. Just talk to them even if you don't plan on doing their requests. Although some of the dialogue can be pretty funny implication wise like Almudron Mud being used in certain Dango, you don't actually need to worry about paying attention unless you want to.

Village Quests have roughly half the HP they usually do in their Hub Quest versions. However the Hub Quests scale their HP depending on the amount of players active in the quest whether you have 2, 3, or 4 people. The scaling usually goes as follows:
1P = Base HP
2P = 1.5x~ Base HP
3P = 1.8x~ Base HP
4P = 2x~ Base HP
Village Quests = 0.5x~ Base HP

In general that's roughly how the scaling works though there are obviously exceptions. It also adapts on the fly even if someone leaves.

The first thing in any Monster Hunter game a new player should do, is go to the training range as soon as they allow you to and try out every weapon. Find something that feels good to hit monsters with or just looks cool to you. DO NOT go off of what has the bigger damage number. The majority of time spent in this game will be doing hunts and in the background becoming more in tune with your weapon.


I highly recommend looking up the "Switch Skills" for your weapon. Even though it may count as a spoiler I think it's imperative that you know what else your weapon can do, as these affect the experience you get while playing a weapon by altering movesets, properties, and wirebug moves. You might find a weapon feels awful one moment, but then suddenly it has a different combo and it feels kinda nice.

Every weapon has 3 Switch Skills in base Rise and gets even more in Sunbreak. The first set of unlockable Switch Skills are given by Master Utsushi in the Gathering Hub after crafting or upgrading 8 different types of that weapon. I recommend upgrading the defender weapons even if you're not planning on using them just to fulfill this quota since they're cheap and then crafting cheap stuff from the bone and metal trees. The second set is unlocked after completing certain High Rank quests in the hub, given out by Master Utsushi. In Sunbreak this is expanded even further as weapons get even more Switch Skills as well as the ability to swap between them on the fly.


The point of this gear is to basically just speed you through the base game, all the way to the DLC. While the weapons are still as strong as they were, the armor has had its defence nerfed a little bit this time around. Even with the nerfs I still highly recommend avoiding them and instead trying to learn how to craft weapons and armor as many players simply find themselves wearing it until the DLC and then don't know anything about buildmaking or what skills are good for their weapon resulting in them having a more negative experience. Even then, in the end I can't stop you from using them, no one can... yet.

For those using Mouse and Keyboard play around with your controls. The Wirebug/Scroll Swap actions can be quite awkward by default and I don't know anyone who has gotten far in the game without rebinding them. While I have no doubt in my mind that people have adjusted to the default controls I still highly recommend rebinding them.

As mentioned before, the first thing you should always do in any Monster Hunter(released after World) is go to the training area and trying out all the weapons to find one that seems cool and satisfying to use. After doing so I recommend looking up the Switch Skills so that even if something doesn't look appealing now, there might be an aspect of it you're just not seeing yet that you might really enjoy. On top of that, some Switch Skills are also just straight upgrades to others.

The majority of your time in this game will be you becoming more in tune with your weapon and getting more comfortable with it as you fight tougher and tougher monsters. Even then, you don't have to stick to one weapon, and you can swap at any time.

Bonus Tip: If your dog is bothering you by attacking in the training area you can go to the entrance and use the "Wait" command and it will stay there.

If you're unfamiliar with Capcom, they love to make things that seem somewhat "simple" on the surface, but have lots, and I mean LOTS, of tech that no matter what they never teach you. This game, and especially the weapons, are no different. This is noticeably prevalent in Rise's Wirebug skills as well as the weapons themselves.

The easiest example of this is Charge Blade's "Guard Points" which are moments throughout Charge Blade's animations where the weapon is blocking more effectively than usual during certain animations. Successfully pulling off Guard Points negates more chip damage, builds up stun, damages the monster, and allows the user to perform an SAED when the monster is most likely in recovery.

The easiest one to perform is the morph (RT + Y, R2 + Triangle). Blocking an attack while guard pointing gives you an invisible 2 points of the Guard skill, that stack with the other 2 invisible points of Guard from having your shield charged. These invisible points also stack with the Guard skill itself even when its capped out at 5 points giving you an effective Guard 9.

A key part of the fundamentals of weapons in Rise is that every weapon has some form of parry, iframe, and hyper armor. Whether it be part a switch skill, a wirebug move, or even just the base kit, finding and using these tools is an essential part of what makes Rise tick. Most moves can cancel their recovery into a wirebug skill making them useful for getting you out of troublesome situations. These wirebug cooldowns, skills and recovery cancels are what make the combat of Rise flow nicely as you parry, dodge, and tank your way through the hunt.


After the first hit of the Wirebug skill "Earthshaker" Hunting Horn gains hyper armor for the second half of the attack.

Hyper armor is a property that allows you to take an attack from most moves and keep going, even if you get hit (conditions apply). Be careful with hyper armor, reduced damage can still be lethal damage. On top of that you lose the invulnerability you normally receive from getting knocked over because you keep going.


A successful Wirebug parry with Switch Axe's "Elemental Burst Counter" followed by the use of Sunbreak's Switch Scrolls mechanic for iframes.

Parries come in many forms and usually tend to provide some form of advantage other than just avoiding/negating the damage you would take otherwise whether that form be a massive output of damage and/or providing a buff to other parts of your weapon.

Iframes are frames where your character doesn't have a hitbox and is invulnerable. While you have iframes during rolls it's only a small amount without any skills that increase them. Instead you will find the more useful iframe moves within Wirebug skills and Sunbreak's Switch Scrolls. Some Wirebug skills are affected by both Evade Window and Evade Extender furthering their capabilities.

The Superman dive is performed by having your camera preferably facing the monster, and having your hunter run away with their weapon sheathed. You have a LOT of Iframes when you perform this dive and it allows you to safely deal with certain moves and some of the biggest attacks risk free.


By chaining superman dives you can avoid dangerous attacks

Wirefall is a recovery tool that may seem super nice to just spam, but doing so can and will get you killed later on when monsters have moves designed to stop you from mindlessly wirefalling back towards the monster. Instead you should primarily do it to evade a followup attack and get to a safer position to recover.

Adding on, don't forget you can also at any time mid combat just sheathe your weapon and jump away. Be smart with this tool, if you get used to it the sky is effectively the limit.

Sometimes when you get hit, it's better to just lie there on the ground, as you're invulnerable while you're on the floor until you're just over halfway done getting up. Some monsters have special properties in their attacks, usually these come in two parts hence why they will be called "combo" attacks. The first part of these combo attacks is usually to knock you on the ground, or in the air, with the second part usually doing a massive amount of damage unless you wirefall out of them. Monster hitboxes also have absurdly massive invisible hitboxes that are coded to only hit you if you are midair/wirefalling.


The inspiration for why I've nicknamed them combos.

Sunbreak is where things get insane. Monsters have mixups, they do more damage, they have more tracking, they have new moves to bait your parries. Its very momentum based in that once you get going, you keep going until the monster hits you and your momentum stops and you gotta build it back up again. While Monster Hunter combat in general is momentum based, Rise takes this to the extreme with skills like Heaven's Sent, Powder Mantle, and Berserk that really push this momentum based combat forcing you to play better while taking risks for high damage.

Earlier I stated I recommend searching up the Switch Skills even if you consider it a spoiler as they can drastically affect your opinion on how your weapon feels as well as your decision making for armor sets. I am once again urging that you search them up.

This game is not World, do not go in expecting Monster Hunter World. If you play it like World and refuse to use it's new mechanics you will not enjoy it even if you don't find yourself struggling without them. If there's any time to try a new weapon for a fresh experience its now!

Off the top of my head here are some significant changes:

Hunting Horn
Once again it's been given a large rework and while in World it was considered a "Support Weapon" by the devs its rework gives it access to a lot of hyper armor, and I-Frame moves. In Master Rank it also has access to a Switch Skill that is an amazing wakeup option. It also has new song types that everyone in a hunt will love you for.

Insect Glaive
In World the skill Brace(Flinch Free) had three tiers and for every tier of Brace equipped you would get 1 invisible point(s) of Earplugs, Wind Resist, and Tremor Resist so long as you have all extracts. In Rise this is no longer tied to the skill and is part of the weapons base kit. On top of this, the "helicopter" playstyle is more difficult as monsters have funny hitboxes, but if you can get over this you can find yourself dealing much more damage with the right setup. While this might sound bad, like every weapon in Rise it gained moves that have iframes allowing the aerial playstyle to actually be more than viable in Master Rank. I don't personally enjoy this weapon but I find the aerial speedruns very interesting.

Charge Blade
Overall the weapon is a lot harder to play but also has a lot more damage potential. At first you will find SAED feels a lot more difficult to aim. The reason for this is because of an increase in the width you can aim the SAED that comes with the cost of higher accuracy. The vertical hitbox for SAED has also been made smaller which will also take some getting used to. I recommend trying out the Switch Skill that moves the guard points. If you are good enough with the weapon you will find that the new tools allow you to position yourself anywhere for that perfect SAED and deal incredible amounts of elemental damage so long as you strike at the perfect moment.

Lance
Lance has gotten buffed at the cost of losing my the beloved clutch claw counter. It has many new viable combos other than just poke, poke, poke, (still viable). The Instant Block Switch Skill may feel awkward at first but is amazing once you get used to it and allow you to negate most chip damage and free up many more slots in your build without guard once you get confident with it.

Longsword
Now with even more parries! Longsword no longer relies solely on Foresight Slash and now has many different parries for you to choose from. In Sunbreak it also gets the Sacred Sheathe which allows for a very different playstyle if you want something more fresh. Quick Sheathe now affects the special sheathe much more than it does in world and landing a parry from special sheathe now moves you up a tier.

Switch Axe
My beloved Switch Axe now comes with more switching than usual, as everything can almost be chained into anything leaving the weapon feel the most fluid its ever been. The new skill Rapid Morph speeds up and increases the damage of going back and forth between Sword and Axe, making it really all about using both modes. Powering up sword mode now affects axe mode and ZSD now comes with built in Rocksteady (Careful it can get you killed).

Talismans are no longer crafted but are instead relegated to an RNG mechanic like in older titles that has the capability to move armor pieces into the trash and make you remake your entire build from scratch. Decorations are now craftable at the smithy and you can even craft skills that were tied to set bonuses in World such as Master's Touch and Razor Sharp. The cost of many skills has increased by which I mean attack and crit eye jewels are now level 2 instead of level 1 and half/half skills are not a thing.

Off the top of my head these are some big examples, I recommend looking around yourself.
• Masters Touch is now only an 80% chance to not lose sharpness on crit.
  
• Razor Sharp is now a 50% chance to not lose sharpness.
  
• Weakness Exploit has been un-nerfed and now provides 50% crit chance when attacking weakpoints.
  
• Attack Boost now gives a percentage attack buff instead of +5% affinity starting at level 4.
  
• Resuscitate now gives damage buffs instead of stamina reduction + iframes.
  
• Free Meal is now 3 tiers and caps at 50%.

While this will be elaborated on in a section of its own, the builds in base game are rather plain but builds in Sunbreak are much more varied and you have MANY more options when it comes to making builds. In general, element is better than raw, though you should still look up which is better for your weapon and keep that in mind while making sets. No matter what your playstyle I'm certain there's a way you can enhance it using the many skills available.

One thing I love in this game is how much diversity there is in builds. One of my favorite things to do in this game is just poke around at people's builds and see what they've made with what they've got as well as what kind of playstyle their build compliments. If you are the creative type you will find yourself thriving with all the combinations and ideas.

Roll iframes have been nerfed to the point where I no longer think learning to roll through roars is something you should think about doing all the time without evade window or similar skill. Instead you will want to learn to use your weapon's tools (Parry, Hyper Armor), to punish monsters for yelling at you or doing bad moves. If you still want to play with a dodge focused playstyle there are many skills (Adrenaline Rush, Bladescale Hone, Embolden), that encourage this playstyle. Do note though that dodge roll iframes have a cap now since there are many more skills that increase iframes.

Potions and Mega Potions heal a burst of hp before healing the rest as long as you don't roll out immediately. Poison Smoke Bombs, and Smoke Bombs in general have been nerfed and aren't nearly as useful as they are in World to the point that I don't recommend taking them. Astera Jerky has been replaced by gourmet fish which take longer to eat but also allow your hp bar to heal past the red. I highly recommend keeping these and they can be easily obtained through the Motley Mixing of fish-like items.

Max potions no longer increase your max HP but do still fully heal you. The max HP in Rise is higher with the petalace and spiribird system. While in World the max HP is 200 in Rise it's 250 so long as you have certain petalaces, eaten dango, and spiribirds. You also no longer lose the Max HP gained from eating after you die.

Capturing the monster no longer gives you more rewards, instead it shifts the drop rate chances to favor certain parts over others. Please be mindful of what the host might want. I am stressing this very hard as throughout my time in this game there have been numerous moments where somebody begins the capturing process while the host is filling the chat with "don't capture" and they continue to do so even when the chat window is full. You never gained more rewards for capturing in World.

Overall, so long as you can get the hang of working in Wirebug moves and adjusting to the loss of your Fatalis armor your playthrough will be a joke difficulty wise.

Flinch Free has been mini-reworked, going from a level 3 to 1 deco, it now protects from more friendly fire but also blocks you from being saved. There is another decoration unlocked in Sunbreak called Shockproof which is just a stronger version of Flinch Free that I highly recommend getting when you see it. Shockproof as a decoration stops your attacks from flinching other players and also makes you immune to flinch attempts from others unless stunned/paralyzed upon which it turns itself off until you recover.

During multiplayer a key aspect is paying attention to everyone's health bars and using items like Lifepowder and Dust of Life so long as you have them. Another is the common practice of "sleep bombing" the monster. If the monster is put to sleep by someone with a sleep weapon, a sleeptoad, or some other method it is common practice to "sleep bomb" the monster. The first hit to a monster does double the damage, a prime weapon for this is Greatsword's "True Charged Slash" but almost every weapon has some example of an attack that does high single target damage and a way to land it on a sleeping monster.

As soon as you load into a Join Request, the monsters HP goes up and the people in the fight have to deal with that. This is where the importance of having a planned spiribird route comes in and you must find a way to minimize the amount of time before you are ready to join the fight. If you need to change your element/eat or something like that in the game options you can setup a shoutout for whenever you're entering your tent.

If someone is Wyvern Riding you can actually parry the monsters attacks (if your weapon relies on some form of buff) even though they deal 0 damage to you. (This is very niche and I dont recommend actually going out of the way for it.)

Usually you want to take this time when someone is riding a monster to stabilize and sharpen for when they finish up. You can take this a step further and do something like pop a demon powder if you have one so everyone does more damage when the monster gets toppled.

If your weapon has a battery or charges of some kind you can still gain them while the monster is being ridden.

If you're the one riding a monster then please don't wander off even if a high damaging monster is in the next area it might just be nicer for everyone to just wallbang it for damage and keep it in the area you're in. Who knows, the monster in the next area will probably pay a visit during the hunt later anyway.

In Rise the environment is your friend there is so much endemic life that can assist you in your hunt. There's a nice list compiled here.[game8.co]

The Citadel

In Sunbreak there's a few other nice endemic life forms added but there's some specific ones I'd like to mention on the "Citadel" map that you can see in pretty much any speedrun that's on the map and that's what I've nicknamed the Speedrunner zone.

Basically in Area 13, not only is there a swamp that doubles the time the monster is stunned in but there's also an endemic life that latches on and explodes wherever they're attached as long as the monster lingers in the swamp. Getting a monster here is very much worth it but I wouldn't go out of your way in multiplayer hunts to do so.

Lucky Life can spawn on any quest and can be very nice when it comes to making money and speeding up a grind.

Blue Bird
Picking up the Blue Bird will increase the quest rewards at the end of the hunt.

Money Owl
Picking up the Money Owl will increase the amount of money earned at the end of a quest.

The first thing I expect every player to do at least once, I went through many hunts in the base game High Rank, watching in horror as players will send them into open space or even stand still on them for a few seconds literally reading the controls in the bottom right (IN HIGH RANK). If you're going to be at least lazy all I ask is that you send them into a wall at least once.

Overall this system is quite like a fighting game, with how monsters perform. Every monster has around 2-4 moves, your light and heavy attacks, as well as attacks that require a movement input like back, or forward + attack button. Some monsters like Teostra have wacky mechanics akin to setplay, others have very good ranged attacks(Rajang), and some even get changes to their moves depending on if they're powered up or not (Malzeno, Magnamalo). I recommend finding whichever move has a blight, using it till the blight is applied, then swapping over to whichever move does the most damage.

The main thing you should do is use the attack, as soon as the damage number shows up you press the dodge button to cancel out of the recovery and repeat the process until you're about to run out of time. I recommend waiting until the Mounted Punisher timer is about to run out since it lets you cancel into it much like the emergency dodges. If you play around with it enough you can figure out combos that can be performed before the mounted punisher timer runs out.


If you launch a monster into another monster that hasn't been wyvern ridden in the past 5 minutes you can go from monster to monster. You can expand on this by going doing the usual wallbanging process and using the monster as the final wall to get the most damage out of it. If you do this right it makes most hunts quite easier which is especially nice if you're struggling.




Starting in Master Rank, the beetles can be found on certain walls on every map. They come in pairs of 2 and add extra damage to a monster if it's wallbanged into them. It also inflicts an elemental blight on them if you attack the beetle with an elemental weapon, ammo, a blightbeetle, or even a monster's elemental attack.


If you're being extra and want to know cooldowns, so long as you're launching one monster into another the cooldown is 5 minutes. The cooldown for a puppet spider though is 10 minutes.

If a monster is not the target of the quest it can usually be made rideable with usually just 1 wirebug attack/parry.


In the Game Options you can disable the auto mounting of a monster with your weapon which turns it into a damage window. If everyone in your lobby/hunt has it turned off it will become a damage window.


As far as etiquette is concerned don't go out of your way to go monster to monster, try to stick within the same area or at most one area over if there's a lot of damage potential. If you MUST move it, type something like "area 9" in chat. Most of the time in MP 4 people lategame beating on the monster can outdamage Wyvern Riding so the wallbangs into knockdown is more worth it.

Dango tickets increase the chances of you getting your food skills by a drastic amount. You can also have a near infinite amount of them thanks to the Waifu Trader Rondine and her meat. Interacting with her and going to "Exchange for Items" then "Trade Goods" you can buy Raw Meat for 60 points each, buy as much as you're willing to spend before heading over to Yomogi and picking "Motley Mix" and mixing 99 (or however many you picked) Raw Meat. Mixing the meat will cause dialogue to appear and gain Dango tickets in proportion to roughly half the meat you mixed.

If you're in endgame, most mantles can be acquired from Bahari in exchange for Anomaly coins which can be acquired very easily after a fixed amount of quests with his conditions. If you're playing Solo and absolutely desperate the best way to grind something is equipping yourself with 2 gathering palicos, equipping the skill Good Luck 3 (If you can fit it). Ideally, you also get the blue bird endemic life which increases quest rewards and potentially look into the event quests to check if there is one where the monster has less HP than usual. Don't forget to check your hunter notes to see what you can do to increase the drop rate, via methods like part breaking or capturing.

If you're going for basic parts I highly recommend grabbing a gold wirebug, mounting a separate monster, and then fighting your monster. The gold wirebug will make the monsters drop more parts on the ground that you can then pickup.

You don't have to do this but I highly recommend optimizing your Palamutes and Palicoes when possible. A good resource for this is the R/MonsterHunterMeta Buddy Guide[docs.google.com]. You would be surprised how good the dogs are when they are actually properly built.

Always try to have a colored wirebug if possible. Not only do they provide their respective buffs but they speed up your cooldowns making them 15% faster so long as you have one. This buff also tends to stack with other cooldown buffs which makes it even more important.

In World even the Fextralife was really shaky and I won't lie, the Rise one is way worse. For some reason, game8 has somehow in my experience been one of the best places for general game knowledge. I don't think their builds are the best, but they are okay but are quite accessible. Overall game knowledge though is where game8 has been very helpful. Of course there's always the classic Kiranico as well but that has its downsides. For builds I'd say just search around on youtube or the MonsterHunterMeta reddit thread and you'll find something that's good. I'll talk about buildmaking in specific later but these are just in general good sources. For me, the data bible usually has the answer to a lot of random stuff I've wondered.

Game Knowledge
Kiranico
Game8
Data Bible[docs.google.com]

Builds/Content Creators for Certain Weapons
MonsterHunterMeta General Builds Collection While most of them are hard to achieve without cheating I still recommend looking at them to get a sense of what's good for your weapon.

Good YT Short on Fundamentals

Longsword

Switch Axe

I might add more in the future we'll see.
If you have suggestions link them in the comments.

Evading is a core mechanic in every monster hunter game whether it be through the use of the superman dive or the new wirebug. Both how you want to use it and how much you use it tends to change per game. Sometimes you want to roll through an attack but most of the time in Rise you want to roll away from it unless your build centers on it and can compensate for the now lack of iframes. In general in Rise Evade Extender > Evade Window unless your build focuses on I-frames.

Right here [imgur.com]is a sheet made by Barrusu that has all of the iframes and such for wirebug moves, as well as which ones are affected by Evade Window.

Originally this section was supposed to be an extra note included in the sections above this but steam character limits forced me to say otherwise.



The repositioning power of the wirebug allows for some of my favourite back and forth gameplay once you get into the flow.

While you will get better talismans later, I'd say it's worth it to just always have Talismans melding as long as you're just using resources you know you'll never use. As you progress through the story and the endgame you'll unlock more and better types of melding.

Both the new maps have 2 camps total including the one you spawn at. The Jungle one is not super useful but I still recommend getting it, but the one in the Citadel is very useful. I'm not gonna tell you where they are you have fun figuring that out yourself.

Unlocked upon reaching Master Rank, Buddy Recons act essentially as fast travel points, when you're near a spot that can be used as one an NPC will point it out and you then assign a cat who will allow you to travel there once per hunt. There are several on each map so keep an eye out.

Hopping skewers allow you to min max your meals, the dango at the top will be level 4 and will get extra effects, the dango in the middle will be normal, and the dango at the bottom will get weakened. I've seen posts where people have Moxie at the bottom and then get confused that it doesn't save them because they don't notice that level 1 Moxie actually only has a 50% chance to save you. On top of this the skewers also lower the activation chance of the food skills activating so remember to pair them with a Dango ticket in increase their odds of actually activating.

Get the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ camps in each area, before you move up. Each area has at least one extra camp. If you don't know where they are look them up before going into Master Rank as they speed things up quite nicely.

Try out your new Switch Skills that you get just for reaching Master Rank. You'll get an additional Switch Skill further into Master Rank. Try it out, look up if it has any special properties, some of the ones you get in Master Rank are straight up WAY WAY better than others so keep that in mind. Every weapon has something that's definitely worth using somewhere.


When you obtain more skills in Sunbreak every weapon by that point should have some form of hyper armor or I-frame move native to its kit. If it doesn't at the start of Sunbreak it will be given later on in the story. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with those tools as mastering them will lead to you having an easier time avoiding damage while punishing monsters which will be very handy when they start getting tools of their own.

The order I tend to follow, is look at talismans and decorations, use that to determine some form of general concept with the tools available, like will it be centered around Dragon conversion? Heaven's Sent? Berserk?

If you want a dodge-focused build, you can do that!, use Heaven's sent or Bladescale Hone, mix it with Adrenaline Rush, Bloodlust, Embolden, skills that give you iframes and want you to not get hit.

Hell even bubbly dance can be used for keeping Coalescence and Resuscitate up. There's so many funny goofy wacky builds that I love seeing people come up with when they get lost in the Sunbreak sauce. (I'm going to be very sad if they don't ever give us these kinds of playstyle altering skills again)

From there begin qurious crafting until you think you're somewhat happy with what you have. When you perform the qurious crafting though keep in mind you could get some roll that genuinely makes you redo the entire build from scratch.

In terms of general concept I tend to focus on maxing out as much damage skills as possible before scaling it back with defensive skills until I find a nice middle ground.

Overall it's good to find a nice comfy middle ground where you feel that no matter what you'll find a nice clean, safe, boring way to kill the monster before the hunt runs out of time-- yap yap yap, yap yap yap.


psst, don't listen to this guy telling you to be safe, gambling is good, we love gambling, we love adrenaline. You wanna know how to do some real damage? The answer is simple *Thunderbolt sfx*. The answer, is suicide skills, skills that have a real risk to them but give you massive damage as a reward.

Ignore the format I'm bringing these to you in, it's just a joke and not important, instead, decide how much of a risk you're willing to take and experiment with it. It's not inherently a bad build, as long as it does damage and isn't tearing itself apart.
...

Woah, thought I lost you there, you were talking to that sketchy guy in the corner, don't worry about him. Where was I? Get creative, mix and match skills, there's a lot of fun to be had in just trying things out. One of my favorite things in this game is just peeking at who's cheating people's builds and thinking about how they play based on the skills they have.

While you could go out and find a proper buildmaking guide I'm going to honestly just tell you to have fun with it since this game has a much more loose meta than 4 piece Fatalis. If you want a general idea of what's good I once again recommend looking over at r/MonsterHunterMeta, they aren't right 100% of the time and usually even if something isn't the best that doesn't mean it's bad. At worst they can at least give you a general idea of what's good for your weapon but unless you're cheating I wouldn't go after what they recommend 1:1.

TL:DR: Hurt self but hurt monster more.

The following are skills that are fun and unique in the way they affect the game. Obviously some are better than others but I still would like to advocate trying them since you can have a lot of fun with them and do a lot of damage even with a meme build. There are more skills than these obviously so don't forget about the classics like Weakness/Elemental Exploit, Crit Boost, and Evade Window.

Spiribird Caller
If you are not speedrunning this is the most goated QoL skill this game has. Every 60 seconds a random spiribird is summoned to you. This is really good, please use it.

These next 3 skills require "perfect dodges" which are dodges where your iframes connect with a monster attack hitbox (including roars/wind) as long as this condition is met you can get the buff, even if you still get hit by the attack.

Adrenaline Rush
Performing a perfect dodge gives you +10/15/30 Attack for 30 seconds.

Bladescale Hone
Performing a perfect dodge has a 50/75/100% chance of giving you 20 sharpness back/refilling bowgun ammo/giving close range coating a damage buff(bow).

Status Trigger
Gives all attacks after a perfect dodge the ability to apply status affects instead of the 1/3 for the next 6/9/12 seconds.

Buildup Boost
Makes it so any attacks that applies status does 5/10/15% more damage.

Bloodlust
A monster engaging on you gives you the Gore Magala Bloodlust, slowly draining away your HP but giving you damage buffs, stamina cost reduction, and 1/2/3 Iframes until you cure it or for 60/60/90 seconds. Upon curing you heal all your red HP and gain an affinity buff.

I recommend looking in the data sheet for it since it gets a bit more quirky than I can easily describe.

Frenzied Bloodlust
Curing yourself of Bloodlust gives you an extra wirebug (allowing you to reach a new max of 4) but only for 30/60/90 seconds which drains faster if your weapon is sheathed.

Dereliction
Qurio follow you and drain your HP as the fight goes on, more qurio means more element/attack depending on Red/Blue scroll and swapping scrolls will have you eat them for HP depending on how are following you. This is one of the best DPS skills to use but also one of the least comfortable.

Redirection
Turns your scroll swap into a parry that on successful use refills half a wirebug gauge. The flip from a scroll swap can also trigger perfect dodge skills. This skill is very fun and I highly recommend trying it out.

Embolden
A quirky skill that gives you more defence and iframes when you're being targeted by the monster. It also tells you whenever a monster is targeting you specifically through the "Embolden has activated" which can be nice against very mobile monsters who circle around before attacking.

Intrepid Heart
This skill should be illegal for being at the cost of a level 1/3 decoration slot. Basically by landing hits you fill a gauge that gives you 1 hit of hyper armor with 50/70% damage reduction.

I swear this skill has made me worse at the game by just reducing the damage I take when I do something stupid.

Dragon Conversion
A skill that makes Defence Boost(Level 6) and Elemental res suddenly no longer write-off skills. On the Red scroll all elemental defence is converted to elemental attack. If you land a certain amount of "continuous" hits while on the Blue scroll you'll get a buff to elemental res for all elements that stays when you go back to red until you either die or swap back to blue. The cap for the amount of elemental resistance you can feed this skill is quite high.

Furious
Attacking the monster on Red scroll builds up a fury meter that when full, gives you infinite stamina when you swap to blue. On top of that it also gives you defence and elemental res when you're on Red scroll (This works really well with Dragon Conversion).

Dragonheart
At level 5 when you're below 80% HP all of your elemental resistances get SET to 50 and you gain a unique dragonblight that nullifies non dragon element and increases your attack by 10%.

Bubbly Dance
At level 3 dodging a few times consecutively(iirc its 3) afflicts bubbleblight which now gives you the effects of Evade Window 2. On top of that this skill is pretty useful for proccing Rescucitate and Coalescence.

Mail of Hellfire
When you're on Red scroll you get attack buffs but lose defence and when you're on Blue scroll you gain element but lose elemental resistance. Very fun but also be careful you will randomly get one shot by fireballs.

we love negative elem resistance[imgur.com](It's actually not that bad)

Blood Rite
This skill is basically the reworked Lifesteal from MHW now working only off of broken monster parts. Capcom did their classic nerf strategy of buffing it but making it so you have to work harder for it. The new numbers for the skill at levels 1/2/3 are 3/6/10%, for comparison World Lifesteal augment is 7%.

Blood Awakening
Blood Rite is basically mandatory for this skill but it gives you big buff for as long as you keep healing through lifesteal you will get damage buffs. The cap for this skill unlike a lot of other damage skills is +40 Raw and +30 Element.

Berserk
This skill is one of my favorites design wise since it drastically affects how you play the game. Turning your entire HP bar to red but making it so your HP drains over time whenever youre on the blue scroll. The drain increases massively whenever you take damage but you also can't die whenever you have Red in your HP bar. Swapping to Red Scroll heals you for half of your Red bar and stops the drain.

Strife
Is hard-coded to work with the above skill. Strife gives you more elemental damage based on how much red your HP bar has. As a bonus, at level 3 it gives you infinite stamina if you have the max amount of red it can provide elemental damage for.

Heaven Sent
This is one of my favorite skills since it rewards playing well. Basically if you don't get hit but stay close to the monster for a certain amount of time dependant on melee/ranged weapons you get a buff that decreases the damage of the next time you get hit, halves stamina costs, and the ability to scroll swap to restore sharpness/reload ammo/remove status ailments. The buff is lost if you get hit.

Sneak Attack
This skill is quirky since it gives a percentage buff for attacking "behind the monster". What actually counts as behind is quite lenient. The buff is very nice being 5/10/20% more damage. This skills is really good if you're focusing a tail.

Frostcraft
It's back from Iceborne, now as a skill, the more levels of it, the more bars, the more bars, the more damage.

Grinder (S)
Opens up some unique weapon options as it boosts damage relative to the number of types of sharpness restored from sharpening.

Foray
You get 10/10/15 attack and 0/10/20% affinity when a monster is suffering an elemental blight or status.

Burst
Keep attacking to get more buffs. Really good on some weapons, very mid on others.

Powder Mantle
As you hit the monster, a powdered glow will appear on your character, starting in orange, if the monster hits you the powder explodes and the monster takes damage. However, should you not get hit, the powder will turn blue, and your next hit will deal massive damage based on your raw.
(This skill is worth having 1 point in almost always)

All breakdowns for numbers can be found in the datamine by dtlnor.[docs.google.com] So if you have any questions on things check there.

While I could rant about how much I despise cheating in this game and how so many people who cheat for augments and talismans don't even look up what's legal, (I have seen so many people with Dereliction 3 on one armor piece.) I'm going to instead say that you should try working with what you have. Here's what I recommend in regards to navigating the RNG endgame systems:

Step 1: Always be melding talismans if you aren't going to be using those materials.

Step 2: If you roll a qurious crafting augment that's insane but not one you want its honestly just worth it to go out of your way to craft another of the same piece and just roll on that instead.

This is "fake" advice but if you haven't looked up what min-maxed talismans look like don't do it, ignorance is bliss. be happy with what you have and get excited when you get something better.

At the end of the day you can play the game you want to, but just be aware that by bringing a more than min-maxed HBG build and ending the hunt way way sooner can be kind of a bummer for some people. I understand the frustrations with RNG systems and don't think it's too unreasonable but most of the time when people cheat, the builds they make are so obviously cheated. Instead I am simply going to plea that if you are going to cheat, at least be reasonable and try to keep it to something like a point in 1-2 different skills per armor piece and actually following a guide for what the game considers legal.

Anomalies are one of the mechanics of all time but overall I like this mechanic since it at least tries to incentivise hunting different monsters every now and then by offering bonus rewards and XP to certain monsters.

I honestly just recommend having someone to taxi you by hosting an anomaly quest that's really good and just 1 level below the next break-point. For example if you're AR 61 they would host one that's AR 80. Do be careful though that with this you might miss a part or two but you can easily grab it yourself by just posting the quest.

The more negative modifiers a quest has the more rewards and anomaly XP you get from completing it. You can also gain more xp by joining SOS flares for them and picking up items marked by the shiny red dots in hunts(though they aren't worth going out of your way for just grab them if they're along the path). If you're gonna hard grind it you want one with multiple difficult monsters weak to the same element, a lower amount of time and less feints. Doing the same hunt over and over can be mentally draining and I recommend doing a few types if you can but its up to you.

Though the max level is 300 you don't have to reach that unless you're a masochist since you have all unlocks available at 241. Technically at 220 if you have a friend who is past 241 they can post level 241+ quests as the restrictions on joining cap out at 220.

After you beat the story for Sunbreak a lot of NPCs will want to talk to you, many of them with urgent quests which can be identified by the red speech bubble.

The order they came out in, as well as the order I'd recommend doing them is as follows:

Seething Bazelgeuse
Silver Rathalos
Gold Rathian
Lucent Nargacuga

Flaming Espinas
Violet Mizutsune

Chaotic Gore Magala

Velkhana

Amatsu
Primordial Malzeno

Though there are other urgent quests they are tied to MR and I just recommend doing them as you unlock them.

Do you have to do them in this order? Definitely not, if you think some monsters seem cooler than others, don't be afraid to give them a go. The only monsters I would recommend saving for last are Amatsu and Primordial Malzeno since they kind of stand out from the others, but only a little bit and you should fight them when you're ready for it.

Most of these monsters have unique armor skills that are very fun to play with so I recommend killing them all at least once so you can look at the fun tools they offer. Once again I am going to tell you to really take a step back and think of some fun builds using the tools they have given you.

The real monsters you want to prepare for are found in the Risen Monsters and their high-level Anomaly investigations Hazard variants.

Personally I truly don't think roadblocks exist as much in this game as they do in prior Monster Hunter games due to all the methods that can be used to give openings or deal bonus damage allowing you to kill a monster for now while you learn the fight later. On top of this I think RiseBreak is very fundamentals based in that as long as you know your weapon, your switch skills, your build, and your wirebug moves, you should be able to overcome any challenge by just repeatedly running it back or doing some analyzing of your own build/gameplay.

There are some monsters I will provide information for regardless since some of them are really just built different and because I polled a decent group of friends, veterans, and newcomers with what they struggled with throughout their journey (Wow what an excellent and reliable data source that is surely telling of what everyone struggles with).

However in general always remember that you can use these tools in a hunt if you are really struggling:

- Max spiribirds (baby advice I admit)
- Is the monster just checking if you can superman dive? (Diablos/Espinas)
- Forming a plan using Hunting Helpers (e.g use a Spider to knock it over, then thunderblight it while its down.)
- Min-Maxed Wyvern Riding
- Adjusting your build, think about what problems you had, did you run out of sharpness and start bouncing? Try getting more sharpness or changing the interactions your sharpness has with protective polish/razor sharp. Getting hit too often? Try adding Evade Window, Evade Extender, maybe even Redirection. Not doing enough damage? perhaps something comfy must go.



If you do seem to be struggling with a certain monster not listed please leave a comment below and I will consider giving it a segment or at the very least offering advice.

In general my advice for this monster is to stick to either his front or his back, never in between. Magnamalo has some devious attacks, pay attention to his full body if possible, as he likes to use his weight and continue attacking just when you think his chain might end. As you progress his laser beam will change starting in HR and MR where he will fire off 2 blasts instead of 1. I recommend learning to iframe it on reaction or using evasive skill since it has a nice punish window.

The main move I would say to keep an eye on is his grab, especially with hazard Magnamalo. He can, and will juggle you if you let him and I will never forget the first time this happened to me and the shock that came with it.

The other main move to look out for is the dive bomb signified by him jumping backwards and then forming gas clouds before charging, which I just recommend superman diving consecutively but you should only need to do it twice.

One of my favorite interactions on launch was in an SOS flare where someone joined and got 1 shot and typed in chat "wtf that one-shot me" and someone just said "Yeah he has damage now". Overall he's not that crazy and even if he seems scary with how much he moves around I promise you he is quite punishable once you learn his chains.

In regards to Hellfire Blight. You can usually do this once, maybe twice if you have Hellfire Cloak or get hit a lot. Sheathing and performing a Wiredash will leave a Hellfire Orb at the point you started dashing at. Should Magnamalo or any other monster set off the Hellfire orb they will get knocked down the first time they set it off, and once more if they set the orb off 7-8 more times.

I love this guy. Actually just peak monster design.

Valstrax is an amazing fight with clear, but sometimes sneaky tells that you might not pick up on. The first big piece of advice I have is to make sure that you can always see his front half. Especially if you're attacking his hind legs/tail as he likes to do a peek before doing a 180 and trying to stake you.

When he does the attack (you know the one) I mean THE attack, just superman dive as he starts coming towards you or parry it if you wanna be fancy and get a clip(its a better clip if you get obliterated though).

I love this monster. I love the idea of a monster having 3 blights on a fireball and surely one day they'll give us another one haha (Please Capcom I'll do anything just give me more funny monsters.)

The main thing I see people struggling with is when he decides to spam the charge and run around to which the main thing I'd suggest is to superman dive and just take note of when he's done. He usually does 3 charges before stopping.


Honestly I find the variant easier to deal with due to the toxic being gone. For this guy I recommend paying attention to his legs when he starts doing the startup for the nova. Make sure you also watch out for the followup.

The Hazard version reverts the startup of his charge move back to the frontier status of almost being instant as well as a couple other small things. Be very careful with your positioning.

I've never thought this guy was too bad but I still love this fight. Despite what I think I have seen plenty of newcomers to the series struggle to beat him. My first piece of advice is to play patient, he has combos that seem scary but then he has to stop and breathe for a quick bit. That breath is your window.

To quote my friend(Longsword) the first time we fought him, "He just keeps going, I'm running out of parries."

Keep an eye on his wings at all times, they are the main source of danger and usually you can tell what move he is doing based on the wings alone. This Valstrax has many moves to catch wirefalls so be very careful timing your use of them. I highly recommend Evade Extender over Evade Window in this fight but it's not that bad if you learn it and weave in some Scroll Swapping.

I'm not gonna speak on the nova move, you should experience it yourself :)

If you are struggling with this fight then I might recommend sticking around the tail until you learn his moves.

You are (not) safe from Risen Shagaru, he will cross the arena in the blink of an eye if he has too. Personally I find Risen Valstrax harder but this guy definitely takes second place imo. Like Risen Valstrax, the tail is a relatively safe place if you haven't learned the fight yet but make sure you are paying attention. Rather than deleting you through damage (which he still can), Risen Shagaru will tend to place you in stressful situations that are difficult to escape from, placing explosive frenzy clouds on you after knocking you over and using his massive area of effect attacks.

Depending on what you struggle with there are a few pieces of advice I can offer.

During the first phase Malzeno will poke with his wings, the hitboxes of which are leniant enough to dodge through, especially with any form of evade window.

This monster is mostly a test of patience once the phase 2 begins. During this second phase he will steal his turn constantly until he burns himself out.

Watch your Wirefalls, he has moves designed to catch them. I recommend chaining superman dives during his combos if you're really struggling, otherwise just keep running at him figuring out what works and what doesn't. This monster does not want you to play fair, this is a game with a lot of OP things on the hunter end, and this monster wants you to use them.

The Special Investigation variation is probably one of the hardest monsters I've ever had to fight in the franchise with how extreme he is and giving advice other than "play well" is difficult. Overall he is a test of patience.

Do not over-research the RNG mechanics, be happy with the augments and talismans you get. Your brain will be negatively affected any time you get a talisman and see that it is not min-maxed despite the fact that it's rare.

Be happy with what you have. Embrace creativity with what you get, let your imagination run wild with the possibilities, this is the only game that's like this.

(Grouped by Association) Special Thanks to:

Banan
Taco
Loukas
Denny
Rusty
Athena
Leo

Spafflez
Endlu
Dasher

Seka (Modding goat)

Trico (and friends)

Goose
Daniel(Daniel)








Low key I hate these steam character limits they are stopping me from yapping.