Monster Hunter Rise weapons explained: Which weapon is right for you

The sword and shield might not seem like the fanciest choice, but the set is easy to learn and offers more defense than most weapons. Your attack rotation involves a few slashes and some blocks and sidesteps. If you want something more involved, you can equip Wirebug skills that make staggering monsters easier or that give you new combos and a shield bash attack.

The Long Sword is a bit more complicated, but still straightforward enough for newcomers to pick up. Its combos center on a rhythm of sheathing and attacking to build the sword’s spirit gauge. Once the gauge is full, you can unleash more powerful slashes and cover long distances with dramatic slashes. You need good timing, though. The Long Sword isn’t a fast weapon, and your target won’t sit still while you attack it.

If you just want to move fast and slash everything in sight, the Dual Blades are for you. This is a no-frills choice with only a few basic combos. However, they deal heavy damage and allow for high mobility, and once you fill the Demon Mode gauge, you can move and slash even faster.

The Great Sword is a solid intermediate weapon that offers a bit of defense as well. You can block, tackle, and perform some basic heavy slashes, but charged attacks are where this weapon shines. The Great Sword charges power during combos, and you can eventually unleash a devastating overhead slam attack that’s almost guaranteed to stagger your foe – assuming it hits.

The Lance is the slower, pointier version of the Sword and Shield. It, too, comes with a shield and can dish out quite a bit of damage. It’s exceptionally slow, though, so you’ll want to spend some time practicing in low-level hunts to get the rhythm right.

The Gunlance is pretty much what the name says – a lance with a gun on the end. It fires shells that pierce enemy armor and has a set of Wirebug skills that make up for its slow movement. With the right combos, you can even fire off multiple blasts at once and take a healthy chunk off the target’s HP.

The bow isn’t quite as straightforward as it might seem. It deals pierc damage with arrows, as you’d expect, but the bow’s real strength is the coatings you can smear on arrows. These apply status effects and can make whittling your target’s health down much eaiser.

The Light Bowgun has a rapid fire rate and a special skill that sets explosive traps. The real draw here is the range of ammo types that deal elemental damage, though the Light Bowgun’s faster speed comes at the cost of higher damage.

If you want to see the big damage numbers, grab the Heavy Bowgun. As you’d expect from a heavy weapon, this one fires more slowly. However, it also uses some of the most powerful ammo and can even function as a gatling gun or sniper-like bow.

It’s a hammer, so you can pretty much guess what Capcom designed it to do – hit things, really hard. The hammer is an uncomplicated weapon with some Wirebug skills that make up for its hefty bulk. Just make sure to leave it at home if you need monster parts that can only be obtained by cutting.

The Horn is a unique weapon designed to power up you and your allies. It functions best in multiplayer, where you can play tunes to buff your friends while they attack your target. However, if you’re up for the challenge, you can make it work solo as well. It just takes the right rhythm of songs and strikes to work.

The Glaive is Monster Hunter’s weirdest weapon and one that takes a bit of getting used to. The Glaive’s basic function is a staff you can use to whack enemies or to vault into the air and cover a lot of ground quickly.

You’re meant to augment its power with Kinsects, little bug companions you send out to gather Extracts. Extracts can raise your attack or movement speed or grant you resistance to knockback effects when large monsters attack. Kinsects gather Extracts from monsters, and the type you get depends on which part of the monster you direct the Kinsect to, such as the body or tail.

You can acquire several Kinsect types, each with different bonus effects, including one that heals you when it comes back with an Extract, one that uses less stamina, and one that attacks faster.

The Charge Blade is one of Monster Hunter’s more complex weapons. In sword form, you’re meant to use combos and build energy in the sword’s elemental phials. Once you build enough energy, switch to axe mode and unleash powerful charged attacks with elemental effects based on the phial type. 

The Charge Blade won’t work in sword form if you have too much energy, so while it takes some getting used to, you eventually settle into a rhythm of combos, switching, and using powerful one-off attacks.

The Switch Axe also changes between axe and sword form, but with a slight difference. Axe mode is the base form of this weapon, and it lets you deal heavy damage with powerful, but slow, attacks. 

Once you build up enough energy, you can switch to sword mode, which comes with better mobility and a powerful elemental burst. If you try switching without enough energy, you’ll just reload the axe, though.