Part of what makes Monster Hunter: World so great is the fact there is no real end. Even if you’ve killed everything and achieved all you can possibly achieve, there are different builds to create and items to find. Most of this will be decorations in the true end game but that doesn’t help people who’re working on getting to that point. While this guide won’t remove the grind, it will give you an idea of how to get from point A to B with less wasted time.
Useful things to obtain
- Plunderblade (Rotten Vale Palico quest)
- Bandit Mantle
- Legiana Blessing (Legiana armor)
- Kirin Blessing (Kirin armor)
- Drop rate enhancing food skills
When should you start grinding?
Generally speaking, unless you want to take things really slow, you should try to achieve high rank as quickly as possible. Not only is low rank armor going to get replaced, it’s objectively less useful than their high rank counterparts. This is for reasons like, at a low rank, it is not possible to stack Legiana and Kirin blessing, where as it is possible with high rank armor. The same is true for early decoration grinding. While threat level two might be worth your time, it’s honestly better to just wait until you can do Elder Dragon investigations before really bothering with decoration farming.
How to maximize common drops
There are a couple ways to maximize common drops. One of the easiest is to always sever a monsters tail, which can be done to a good number of monsters, for an additional cut. Having two monsters fight one another is another way to get common drops, like scales, as they tend to drop after a hard hit. Plunderblade might be a hassle to unlock, though it’s more than worth it for all the additional loot you can get while playing solo. For some fights I’ve realistically doubled my loot by having my palico use it.
The last and arguably best way to do it is to capture instead of kill. This will work on any monster, besides elder dragons, making it extremely useful. This will also decrease the length of the encounter, ensure no one trolls and is a shorter wait at the end of a mission.
The best way to do this is to attack the monster until the mini-map shows a skull coming off of them. They should retreat to their home, something you want them to do. Upon arrival most monsters will be sleeping/non-hostile, which is your cue to attack. To actually trap a monster you need to hit it with about two tranq bombs and either a shock or pitfall trap. My advice is to hit the monster with tranq bombs and then capture it, since you have an unlimited amount of time, it won’t wake the monster up and it should instantly capture it when the trap goes off. It also works the other way if you have someone else trap it or are using the palico skill that traps monsters.
Getting sacs
One of the less common, at least for me, drops are sacs. These are various things, such as poison, that are used to make a number of different items. I found the best way is to send your tailraiders on a quest against the monster that drops it. In my experience they have a far greater chance of giving them than anything related to the monster itself.
Obtaining plates and gems
Most of the early to mid game grind will be for plates and gems, both of which are the rarest drops for a given monster. Thankfully, there are a couple of ways to obtain them with relative ease.
Most of the aforementioned things will, if nothing else, give you another chance obtaining one, but there are other things. One of the more reliable ways to get generic ones is to check Argosy. All three of my slots are set to material items and it isn’t uncommon for him to have a Bird Wryern Gem or Firecell stone. Outside of this there are two easy ways to get them, both of which rely on a little luck.
If you don’t have a lot of time to play in a given week, the Elder Elder can turn prints to guaranteed gems, plates and more. Low tier drops use Steel Wyverian Prints, with rare resources and plates requiring Silver and gems taking gold. These are mostly obtained through weekly quests, making them important for anyone who wants to maximize time or opt out of grinding specific monsters for parts.
For those with a lot of time, investigations give them fairly often for silver and gold tier rewards. Even if you don’t have an investigation against the monster you need, searching SOS investigations should yield one within a couple of minutes, at least during peak hours.
Decorations
While a lot of people like to farm events with good drop rates or any tempered investigation, you’re honestly best waiting for the ability to farm elder dragons. Not only do they drop higher tier ones, in addition to materials needed to augment armor, the yield tends to be more worthwhile. Where most low threat investigations yielded resistance boosting perks, high threat drops have given me things that have enabled all kinds of new builds.
Elder dragons also give Gleaming Streamstones, which can be used to obtain new decorations at the same rarity. Please note, if you want to maximize your chances of getting a good one, do three at a time and back up your save. If none of your drops are worthwhile, restore your save and retry until you like the results.
