Monster Hunter Rise Builds | Best armor sets for early and late-game
Fab and fatal
Capcom's latest monster slayer is loose in the wilds on PC now, and starting with the best Monster Hunter Rise builds is a good way to stay alive in some of the toughest early fights. This involves mixing together the best armor sets, utilizing a select few skills, in order to boost up your base attack power.
The Armor and Charms related to the late-game set we discuss is weapon-agnostic, meaning that should you choose to build it for your character, you'll see a boost in your damage, regardless of your choice of weapon.
- Monster Hunter Rise Builds - Best Armor Sets for the early game
- How to get the Powercharm, Power Talon, Armorcharm and Armor Talon in Monster Hunter Rise
- Monster Hunter Rise Builds - Best Armor Sets for the late-game
Monster Hunter Rise Builds | Best Armor Sets for the early game
If you're just getting started with your journey through Monster Hunter Rise, the choice on offer can be perplexing.
Armor pieces in Monster Hunter don't just increase your physical resistance and resilience against different types of elemental damage, but also come with Skills.
These Skills give you powerful passive bonuses, such as an increase in attack power or critical hit chance (Affinity).
However, the main thing to remember is: Don't hoard your low-rank materials.
They will eventually become obsolete, so don't worry too much about using up valuable parts you might need later. Craft whatever armor you like the look of and experiment with different combinations of Skills throughout the early game.
If you'd rather save your collected parts for making different weapons, then the Great Izuchi Set - which is fully craftable from early on in Monster Hunter Rise - is a solid choice that can very easily see you from the start of the game until you first roll the credits.
It features good fire resistance - and fire is a common enemy element - and comes with some basic, but useful Skills. Critical Eye increases your Affinity and critical hit chance, and Recovery Speed increases the rate at which lost health naturally replenishes. Constitution reduces the stamina cost of dodging, and you'll be doing plenty of that.
Alternate best early-game armor - Tetranadon set
If you need higher defense as you progress through the early ranks, the Tetranadon set is a good choice. Each piece has a base defense stat of 18, which is almost double what the Izuchi pieces offer, and it’s one of the first water resistant sets you’ll come across. Fire might be the more common element, but if you’re in the Shrine Ruins and Flooded Forest, water resistance is a must-have.
It’s also an excellent pick for ranged hunters, thanks to the Normal/Rapid Up and Special Ammo Boost skills. The former increases normal ammo power, and the latter is pretty self-explanatory.
Hunger Resistance is another excellent skill, since it reduces your stamina depletion. Most low-rank hunts don't last too long anyway, but not having to break for a bite of roasted meat just makes things that much easier. When you do need a meal, the Speed Eating skill help you consume items faster than normal.
Finally is Heroics, which is a slightly riskier skill that increases attack and defense - but only after your HP drops to 35% or less.
How to get the Powercharm, Power Talon, Armorcharm and Armor Talon in Monster Hunter Rise
Once you reach the late-game high-rank hunts, you're going to need a lot better equipment, however.
Those of you familiar with Monster Hunter World will know of the Powercharm, Power Talon, Armorcharm and Armor Talon, all of which should sit in your inventory once crafted for an attack and defence buff.
These are back in Monster Hunter Rise, and after reaching a certain point in the story, they will become available to you.
The Powercharm and Armorcharms are purchasable from Kagero the merchant, costing 36,000 and 24,000 Zenny respectively. You will need to buy two of each, one to keep, and one to craft into the Power Talon and Armor Talon. So, go and grind out some multi-monster hunts for Zenny, if you don’t have it already.
Once you’ve got all of the items, you will need two Ibushi Claw+ to craft them into their more powerful Talon counterparts.
Keep these in your inventory for a noticeable Attack and Defence boost. This is critical to mastering the more difficult hunts, so do this as soon as you possibly can.
Once that’s sorted, go ahead and grind out more money. The armor is going to be pretty expensive too.
Monster Hunter Rise Builds | Best Armor Sets for the late-game
Since we want this set to be accessible for when you hit a difficulty spike in the high-rank Hub quests, this entire set is craftable once you hit the six-star high rank hub quests, as the seven-star quests are significantly more difficult than the previous tier.
This is high-level armor crafting, but if you want a simplified and unified set that performs almost as well, skip down a bit further.
The skills we’re focussing on in this armor set are:
Attack Boost, as this provides a base boost to your attack, like the skill says. Critical Eye, which increases your Affinity, or the amount of times you dish out critical hits, and Weakness Exploit, which further increases your affinity when attacking weak spots.
This set isn’t an easy one to craft and upgrade. However, it will result in having a very good armor set, and decent skills to see you through the harder high rank hunts, and Apex monsters.
| Monster Hunter Rise Builds | Best Armor Sets | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Armor Type: | Armor Name: | Skills: | Decoration Slots: |
| Helmet | Zinogre Helm S | Weakness Exploit Level 1, Latent Power Level 1 | 1x Level 1 Slot |
| Torso | Nargacuga Mail S | Critical Eye Level 2, Evade Window Level 1 | 2x Level 1 Slots |
| Arms | Anjanath Vambrace S | Attack Boost Level 2, Slugger Level 2 | 1x Level 1 Slot |
| Waist | Anjanath Coil S | Attack Boost Level 2 | 2x Level 1 Slots, 1x Level 2 Slot |
| Legs | Ingot Greaves S | Attack Boost Level 2, Critical Eye Level 2 | 1x Level 1 Slot |
| Charm | Windstorm Talisman | Attack Boost Level 1, Partbreaker Level 1 | N/A |
In total this set with no extra decorations, should leave you with the following skills:
- Attack Boost Lv 7
- Critical Eye Lv 4
- Slugger Lv 2
- Weakness Exploit Lv 1
- Latent Power Lv 1
- Evade Window Lv 1
- Partbreaker Lv 1
This will impact your attack in the following ways:
- Attack Boost Lv 7: 10% added to your attack value +10
- Critical Eye Lv 4: 20% base affinity to your weapon
- Weakness Exploit Lv 1: 15% Additional affinity when attacking a monster’s weak point
In total, you should also have an additional seven level 1 decoration slots, and one level 2 decoration slot.
This might not be the most optimal setup for your particular weapon, but we guarantee it will kick out a significant amount of damage. Just be sure to upgrade the relatively low rarity Ingot Greaves in order to bring it up to the level of the rest of the armor.
If you’re still having trouble with the elemental resistances with this set, eat for defense up against the element that your target monster will be using.
Again, this is an incredibly versatile set that we’ve intentionally left a little bit blank in terms of decorations, as none of the skills (Attack Boost, Critical Eye, or Weakness Exploit) are craftable from the Smithy at the time of writing.
This means that you can still slot in alternative decorations to further enhance your playstyle, and damage uptime with your weapon of choice.
Bolstered by the power of the Powercharm, Armorcharm, Power Talon and Armor Talon we crafted previously, this set should be able to see you through all of the challenges the game will throw at you, and is craftable before you hit some of the harder hunts in the seven-star high rank hub quests.
Best high-rank gear set - Simplified version
If you don't feel like piecing together your own set of high-performing armor, you can opt for the plain high-rank Zinogre set instead. It comes with an impressive set of offensive Skills and a decent base defense stat, so it's the best of both worlds. It's also ideal for frontline fighters who use stamina extensively
Latent Power is one of the highlights. It boosts your affinity and lowers stamina consumption, and at a stack of four or higher, you'll get a 50% affinity boost and 50% stamina reduction. Every piece of Zinogre S gear has the potential for Latent Power, so getting that stack should be easy.
Critical Eye is self-explanatory, and Weakness Exploit boosts your weapon affinity if you attack a monster's weak part, which you should be doing anyway at this point.
Finally is Constitution, which reduces your stamina consumption even further.
.Whatever your rank in Monster Hunter Rise, we've got the guides to help you survive each hunt. Our beginner's guide has everything you need to know that the villagers of Kamura aren't quite so keen to tell you. Planning an armor set is all well and good, but you'll need to actually find the monsters and extra resources first, including Kamura Tickets.