Bow
Low Rank

Bow, and Bowguns, are in a unique spot. They are the only weapons that can actively apply two or more status effects during a hunt. Bowguns use special ammo, and Bows have coatings.

In general for bows, we want to get access to these extra status effect coatings if possible.

Power Coating is going to be the main focus for damage, but the extras will provide additional utility.

The short answer for this guide is: Make the Kulu Ya-Ku bow in the early game and then the Tobi-Kadachi bow and Legiana Bow for mid to late game, and finally the Nergigante and Diablos Bows for end game.

Now for the long answer:

The Iron Bow 1 we start with is actually good. Make sure to gather iron ore from mining nodes during the first set of quests to upgrade from your Iron Bow 1, to an Iron Bow 2 as soon as possible.

You will use this for the first set of large monsters, including Great Jagras, and the Kulu Ya-Ku.

If you’re lucky, after your first hunt with the Kulu Ya-Ku you’ll have the required 1 Kulu-Ya Ku Beak, 2 Kulu Ya-Ku Hides, and 3 Kulu-Ya Ku Scales to upgrade your Iron Bow 2, into a Kulu Arrow 1.

You’ll want to abuse the Paralysis, Sleep and Blast coatings with this bow. Unfortunately, it does have fairly low damage, and does loses the ability to use Power coatings, but it’s not a huge deal because Blast coatings deal so much damage in these first stages of Low Rank..

You’ll want to check the combo list, and bring materials to combine additional coatings for longer and harder hunts. Being able to have a second set of 20 Blast Coatings can pay dividends. Always have a stock of Parashrooms to make Paralysis coatings, Sleep herbs to make Sleep coatings, and Fire Herbs to make blast coatings, and 99 empty phials.

Since we have sleep coatings, we definitely want to abuse a technique known as sleep bombing. This involves putting a monster to sleep, and then dropping barrel bombs at it’s weakpoints, most commonly the head, before exploding them with a ranged attack.

The first attack does bonus damage to sleeping monsters, so the bombs going off simultaneously deal extreme damage. This is a really easy way to break troublesome parts like Diablos Horns, and it just does an absurd amount of damage. You’ll want to bring Large Barrel Bombs, preferably Mega Barrel bombs into every hunt with you, and the ability to mix more if you manage to put a monster to sleep multiple times. Dropping Barrel Bombs on sleeping monsters, and blowing them up with a full length dragon piercer is the go-to combo and will deal an absurd amount of damage.

Make sure you restock your coatings, bombs, and traps after every hunt. It’s especially easy to forget to replace coatings because they won’t auto-restock if you don’t have at least one in your inventory.

Use your Kulu Arrow 1 to take out the Pukei Pukei in the Ancient Forest. Then do your mandatory assignments of hunting a Barroth, as well as a Jyuratodus in Wildspire Wastes.

After Jyuratodus, make a Second Iron Bow 1, and upgrade it to an Iron Bow 2 using 3 iron ore. Then upgrade it to an Aqua Arrow 1 by using 3 Earth Crystal, 1 Jyuratodus Shell, 3 Jyuratodus Scale  , and 1 Aqua Sac.

This bow is comparable to the Kulu Bow. You’ll gain Power Coatings, but lose paralysis and blast. This bow is mostly being built as a bridge to the Legiana Bow later on.

Now, you’ll have to hunt a Tobi-Kadachi.

This is the most reasonable bow path for the early game. You lose out on the sleep and blast coatings from Kulu, but gain higher base damage output from higher raw damage, the added thunder elemental damage and power coatings. The Tobi-Kadachi bow path has a bonus to paralysis coatings, so make sure you abuse them.

This is the bow you should use for most of the game for general purpose hunting.

Make a Hunters Bow 1, and upgrade it to a Hunters Bow 2 by using 3 Monster Bone S. From there, upgrade it to a Pulsar Bow 1 by using 1 Tobi-Kadachi Claw, 3 Tobi-Kadachi Scale, and 2 Tobi-Kadachi pelts.

Our next hunt is Anjanath. It’s moderately weak to lightning, but the ability to sleep bomb and use blast coatings will be beneficial, even though it’s resistant to blast build up. The damage output shot for shot will be fairly comparable otherwise. It’s your choice what to use. Keep going and you’ll have to hunt Zorah Magdoros.

After defeating Zorah Magdoros, don’t worry, it’s a setpeice, and you can’t really lose, you’ll gain access to the Coral Highlands.

In the Coral Highlands, you can mine to get Coral Crystal. Mine 3 as soon as possible, once you do, you can upgrade your Pulsar Bow 1, into a Pulsar Bow 2 by using 2 Tobi-Kadachi Electrode, 3 Tobi-Kadachi Claw, 2 Electro Sac, and 3 Coral Crystal.

You can also mine Dragonite Ore off of Zorah Magdaros’ back as well as in the Coral Highlands. Gather 5 of them as soon as possible.

Upgrade your Aqua Arrow 1, into an Aqua Arrow 2  by using 5 Dragonite Ore, 3 Jyuratodus Fin, 2 Jyuratodus Fang, and 3 Gajau Skin.

Continue progressing, until you’ve defeated Paolumu.

Then you’ll descend into the Rotten Vale, take out Radobaan. Radobaan is resistant to sleep, but you can put him under with some effort, however you will absolutely bully him with Blast Coatings on the Kulu Arrow 1. The Tobi Bow will be adequate otherwise. This is the last time you should use the Kulu Bow, from now on, stick with the Tobi Kadachi Bow, or the next bow we’re going to build.

Continue progressing, and you’ll have to take out a Legiana. If you’re lucky after your hunt, you’ll have the 2 Monster Bone+ required to upgrade your Pulsar Bow to it’s final low rank form.

Upgrade your Pulsar Bow 2, to Pulsar Bow 3 by using 2 Monster Bone+, 2 Tobi-Kadachi Electrodes, 2 Tobi-Kadachi Membrane, and 2 warped bones. The Warped Bones can be harvested from bone piles in the rotten vale.

Use 3 Legiana Claw,4 Legiana Scale, and 2 Frost Sac to upgrade your Aqua Arrow 2, into a Glacial Arrow 1. This bow gains sleep and poison coatings over the Tobi Bow, but loses out on Paralysis. Make sure to bring Poison Coatings, with Toadstools, and Sleep Coatings, and Sleep Herbs to make more. Also utilize sleep bombing with this bow, as we did with the Kulu Arrow 1 at the start of the game.

From here on, use the Pulsar Bow 3 if the Monster is weak to Thunder, like Rathalos, and use the Glacial Arrow 1 if the monster is weak to ice.  If they’re immune to either, use your preference, Pulsar bow gets paralysis coatings, where as the Glacial Arrow gets sleep and poison coatings.

Take out the remaining monsters in Low Rank which are Odogaron, Rathalos and Diablos.

Diablos actually has the hardest hitting bow in the game. You can build it here by making a hunters bow 1, and upgrading it to a hunters bow 2, by using 3 monster bone S. Then Hunters bow 2 to Hunter’s Bow 3, by using 2 Monster Bone M and 1 Ancient Bone, then a hunters stoutbow, using 1 Monster Bone L, 5 Monster Bone M, and 2 Boulder bone. Finally upgrade it into a Diablos bow 1 by using 1 twisted horn, 2 diablos fangs, 4 diablos shells, and 3 Monster Bone+. The Monster Bone+ are rewards from hunting 5* monsters such as Legania, Odogaron, Rathalos and Diablos

The Diablos Bow won’t be great, but it will be the most versatile end game bow, so make sure to build it.

Then take on Zorah Magdaros.

After beating the Zora Magara setpeice, and killing a deceptively strong Pukei-Pukei, you’ll gain access to High Rank quests. Congratulations, the baby gloves are coming off.

High Rank

Our immediate goal in High Rank is a weapon upgrade to compensate for the increased health of monsters.

At the start of High Rank, you’ll be able to free-hunt Tobi-Kadachi, and Legiana.

Hunt Tobi-Kadachi first, and upgrade your Pulsar Bow 3, into a Kadachi Strikebow, by using 3 tobi-kadachi claw+, 4 tobi-kadachi scale+, 3 tobi-kadachi pelt+, and 3 dragonvein crystal. Dragonvein crystal can be found on red mining nodes in the Coral Highlands, or Wildspire Wastes.

But before that, use your new Kadachi Strikebow to hunt Paolumu and Legiana to upgrade your Glacial Arrow 1.

 You’ll need to get Legiana Tail Webbing, and a Plate. Make sure to break Legiana’s tail for a chance at the webbing, and a chance at the plate. Also break it’s head, and back for extra chances at the plate. Then, make sure to hunt Paolumu for wings.  Once you farm the materials, upgrade your Glacial Arrow 1, into a Glacial Arrow 2, by using 4 Paolumu Wing, 4 Legiana Claw, 3 Legiana Tail Webbing, and 1 Legiana Plate. The Legiana Materials are low rank, but the Paolumu Wings are from high Rank Paolumu.

Now, you can immediately upgrade again once you hunt High Rank Legiana.

Upgrade your Glacial Arrow 2, into a Snowfletcher by using 3 Legiana Claw+, 5 Legiana Scale+, 3 Legiana Wing, and 2 Freezer Sac.

Now, you’re situated to take on the remainder of high rank. The final upgrade tier to both of these bows is locked being beating Nergigante, and Kushala Daora. They will be adequate for taking them out. You can choose to progress, or use your Snowfletcher to farm Diablos.

The first upgrade to the diablos bow only requires Monster Keenbones from high rank, and then the rest of the materials are low rank. You can get these as rewards from Anjanath, Barroth, Radobaan, Pukei-Pukei and Tobi-Kadachi. After you get some, upgrade your Diablos Bow 1, into a Diablos bow 2 by using 4 Monster Keenbones, 4 Diablos Ridge, 2 Diablos Tailcase, and 1 Diablos Marrow.

Now you can actually farm Diablos in High Rank to upgrade from the Diablos Bow 2, into a Diablos Coilbender, by using 3 Majestic Horns, 6 Diablos Carapace, 5 Diablos Ridge+, and 1 Blos Medulla.

After hunting Pink Rathian, and actually seeing a Black Diablos, you’ll gain access to a repeatable optional quest to farm Black Diablos.

Black Diablos is hard. Arguably harder than some of the elder dragons. This upgrade does become available now but it may be easier to come back later once you’ve progressed further.

You can upgrade your Diablos Coilbender, into a Galebender, by using 1 Black Spiral Horn+, 2 Black Diablos Ridge+, 4 Black Diablos Carapace and 1 wyvern gem. The wyvern gem carved or as rewards from monsters like Barroth, Jyuratodus, and Radobaan.

After beating Nergigante, and hopefully getting Talons, you’ll be able to upgrade your weapons to their final tier.

Upgrade your Kadachi Strike bow, into a Flying Kadachi Strikebow, by using 2 Nergigante Talon, 4 Tobi-Kadachi Electrode+, 6 tobi-kadachi Claw+ and 1 wyvern gem. The Wyvern Gem can be obtained from Barroth, Jyuratodus, and Radobaan.

At this point you can also farm Nergigante to make his weapon: the Nergal Whisper. It requires going through the Ore tree from Iron Bow 1, to Iron Bow 2, to Iron Bow 3, to Steel Bow 1, to
Steel Bow 2, to Steel Bow 3, to Alloy Bow 1, to the Nergal Whisper.

Congratulations, you now have a weapon that’s completely capable of getting you through the rest of the game.

End Game Weapons

For Final Targets: You can upgrade your Snowfletcher into a Legia Snowfletcher after beating Kushala Daora by using 2 Daora Claw+, 5 Legiana Claw+, 5 Legiana Hide+, and 1 Legiana Gem. The Gem will take some farming, but hopefully you’re lucky.

You can upgrade the Nergal Whisper further into Doom’s Shaft once you’ve cleared out the other Elder Dragons and fought Xeno’Jiva

You can also upgrade the Galebender into the Cera Coilbender after beating Xeno’Jiva. This is by far and wide the hardest hitting bow in the game, and will be excellent for general purpose hunting when you have a gear setup to offset the negative affinity, and get Non-Element Boost decorations.