So You Wanna Be A Bow Main
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Gameplay
- Resource Management
- Basic Moves
- Additional Moves
- Advanced Gameplay
- Gear
- Low Rank
- High Rank
- HR 40+
- Conclusion
- Appendix
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Introduction
Hi there! I’m writing this guide for two main reasons. First, most guides are in video format, which can make them hard to reference later. This guide is for those who prefer a clear, concise, and easily searchable written format. Second, a lot of guides only cover controller inputs, but since Bow really benefits from the precision of mouse and keyboard, this guide will reference M&K controls instead. I’ve structured it into two sections - gameplay and gear.
Gameplay
Resource Management
Bow is a mobile weapon that allows us to dance around a monster while doing constant damage. Holding right click zooms in the reticle and allows us to aim. From this position, we can perform the bow’s various combos while managing our resources and staying within critical distance (making sure our reticle remains orange while it’s on the monster). We have three major resource pools to keep track of:
Stamina is our most basic resource. While many weapons don’t have to pay attention to their stamina bar, every move in our arsenal consumes stamina. If we run out of stamina our damage output falls to zero, so keeping our stamina up is crucial to playing bow effectively.
Trickshot Gauge is the blue bar at the bottom right of our screen. This bar allows us to use our tracer arrow and apply coatings to our arrows. The trickshot gauge fills by charging our bow, performing Discerning Dodge, or breaking wounds with our focus strike. More on this in the next section.
Bow Charge is the easiest resource we have to manage. There are three levels of bow charge:
1 (Uncharged), 2 and 3. Each charge level increases the damage and number of arrows shot by our various moves. Bow charge increases by simply holding down left click, firing Normal Shots, or through Discerning Dodge.
Basic Moves
Bow might seem complicated due to the different resources it has to manage. Thankfully, the actual moves and combos we need to perform are very simple.
Normal Shot (LMB) is the basic bow shot. Each normal shot increases Bow Charge by one.
Quick Shot (F) is a quick spread shot. It does very little damage but consumes no stamina
Tracer Arrow (E) is a tracking arrow that costs ⅓ of our Trickshot Gauge. The tracer arrow lasts for ~10 seconds or until blown up, and automatically makes all our other shots fire at max bow charge level. It also increases the critical range of our attacks.
Coatings (R) allow us to apply various coatings to our arrows that either increase damage or grant various status effects. Applying 10 coatings costs ⅓ of our Trickshot Gauge.
Power Shot is a strong shot that gains arrows with each bow charge level. To perform a Power Shot, press F immediately after a Normal Shot, Quick Shot, or Tracer.
Power Volley is basically a stronger Power Shot. To perform a Power Volley, press F immediately after a Power Shot.
Charging Sidestep (Spacebar) is our basic dodge and repositioning tool. As an added bonus, Charging Sidestep preserves our bow charge level, allowing us to chain multiple combos together.
Discerning Dodge occurs when we use Charging Sidestep right as a monster attacks us. This is the strongest move in our arsenal: it gives us a significant amount of iframe s, recharges some of our Trickshot Gauge, and refills our stamina bar. Dodging consecutively can even avoid certain AOE attacks like Jin Dahaad’s ice clouds.
Putting everything together, our basic bow combo is:
Bow Charge 2 > Normal Shot > Power Shot > Power Volley > Charging Sidestep > Repeat
For M&K, this looks like:
Hold LMB till Bow Charge 2 > LMB (up) > F > F > Spacebar > Repeat from Step 2
The main goal of this combo is to maintain Bow Charge 3 while releasing as many Power Shots and Power Volleys as possible. However, Power Volley has a longer animation commitment than our other moves, which means we can skip Power Volley during smaller openings and when monsters are more aggressive. While performing this combo, we want to keep 100% uptime on our Coatings, applying them whenever they run out. Tracer Arrow can be used if we have extra Trickshot Gauge, or need to target specific hard to reach points on the monster. After the nerfs in full release, it’s no longer optimal to keep tracer up all the time. Applying coatings to our arrows is much more important.
Additional Moves
After mastering the basic combo, we can adapt a few more moves to round out our arsenal.
Dragon Piercer (R+F) is a piercing arrow that does more damage the longer it travels through a monster. As a result, Dragon Piercer is more effective against larger monsters. Dragon Piercer can be charged from a neutral stance for high damage, or used immediately after any combo, which shortens the charge time but also reduces the damage dealt.
Thousand Dragons (LMB+R+F) is a shotgun spread style move that fires multiple arrows in a wide arc. Only use this when close to the monster or when we have a tracer to track to. This move blows up our current tracer arrow and can be used as a high damage finisher, but also has a high animation commitment, so only use this when the monster is not currently attacking.
Focus Fire: Hailstorm (RMB + Shift) is our primary way to break wounds. Holding this for a short duration will highlight active wounds on the monster, up to three times. Each tick increases the damage and number of arrows of our focus strike. Hitting a wound with Focus Fire:
Hailstorm temporarily stuns a monster and allows us to immediately charge a Dragon Piercer.
Arc Shot (LMB+RMB+F) is a rain of arrows type skill that can be charged with bow charge. This skill sticks explosive arrows in the monster that can be blown up with Dragon Piercer, Thousand Dragons, or Focus Fire.
Flying Swallow Shot is performed by pressing R at the end of a Charging Sidestep, or by using Charging Sidestep off the edge of a cliff or ledge. This is our most versatile movement skill and allows us to gap close quickly, escape, or even hop over monsters or small obstacles. Power Shot can also be used after Swallow Shot to continue combos while dash dancing.
Jumping Melee Attack is performed by pressing R while in the air, after jumping off a ledge or off the Seikret. This is the primary way for bow users to mount a monster.
Dashing Attack is performed by pressing R while scaling a wall, resulting in a wall flip and downward facing spread shot.
Advanced Gameplay
Dodge Cancel: Thousand Dragons has a long animation commitment that locks the character in place after firing it. But if we dodge after the attack, we can start moving immediately.
Power Shot Cancel: During a basic combo, pressing both inputs at nearly the same time allows both normal shot and power shot to occur much faster, cancelling part of the animation.
Flying Swallow Jump: Flying Swallow Jump can be used to move around the arena in ways that are impossible for other weapons. For instance, we can scale short walls, or even jump over or around monsters. This single move makes the bow the most agile weapon in the game.
Fast Mounting: With piercing ammo, each jumping melee hits multiple times, allowing for much faster mounts than usual.
Fast Wound Break: Focus Strike: Hailstorm can only lock onto one wound at a time, making it difficult to break multiple wounds. However, if a monster has explosive arrows from Arc Shot attached to it, Focus Strike will lock onto every wound at once, breaking them more efficiently.
Charging Sidestep + Dashing Attack: Charging Sidestep into a wall allows us to instantly go into a Dashing Attack and allows us to aim. Usually, aiming on the wall results in a Jumping Melee instead of a Dashing Attack. This can also be used to evade moves on the ground.
Gear
Low Rank
In Low Rank, we want to focus on Stamina skills above everything else. Constitution and Stamina Surge ensure that we have as much stamina uptime as possible. Unfortunately, there are not many stamina skill armors in Low Rank. Three pieces of Rey Dau armor is the earliest we can get access to Constitution 3.
For weapon choices, since we have limited resources and will be fighting multiple monsters with different weaknesses in rapid succession, the Hunter’s Bow or Dosha Fearbringer II are good options. These bows are both easy to craft and have high raw damage.
High Rank
Our first good armor sets are available in High Rank. Both Yian Kut-Ku and Gypceros can be hunted very early in high rank, and this armor will carry us until we unlock better armor and decorations. This set will give us Constitution V/Stamina Surge II, with plenty of level I and II slots for additional quality of life.
For weapons, we can simply upgrade the bow we are already using, either the Dosha Fearbringer or Hunter’s Bow. This is strong enough to progress to the endgame.
HR 40+
After we reach HR40, every armor in the base game is accessible to us. This means we can start farming for optimal sets and focusing on elemental damage. We can also meld lvl 1 decorations at the melder, which means we are no longer reliant on armor pieces with Constitution.
Gore 2 piece/Elemental
With a focus on elemental damage, Burst always results in more damage than something like Agitator or Flayer, which means it is the best offensive skill to spend our lvl 3 decoration slots on. The only downside is that this build is quite expensive, requiring 3 Chain gems. Those using dash juice and/or black belt meals can replace some constitution gems with more utility, and stamina surge can be replaced with something like peak performance or partbreaker if not needed. Note* Critical Element might be bugged because it doesn’t seem to be increasing damage as much as it should, so until it’s patched, something like Critical Boost is better.
(Image: Gore Elemental 2pc setup)
Gore 2 piece/Raw
Bows highly favor elemental damage, which makes focusing on raw damage weapons feel a little bad by comparison. However, certain matchups in the game have poor elemental HZVs - most notably Arkveld. This makes raw bow preferable for farming these fights. This set is nearly identical to the Gore 2pc elemental set, except we can replace Burst with Counterattack since Burst mostly benefits elemental damage.
Arkvulcan 2pc/Evade/Comfort
This set is similar to the one above, except we are losing the Gore 2 piece bonus which is 25% affinity. In return, we are getting Evade Window 3, Arkvulcan health leech passive, and more flexibility in quality of life slots. This build will do less damage, but is comfier especially for those who are having trouble timing their perfect dodges. It is also much cheaper to build since it only requires one lvl 3 jewel, and can be used temporarily until we have better decos for the Gore set.
Endgame Bow Choices
The strongest bows in the game are Artian bows. Unfortunately, farming these is highly RNG dependent and time consuming. There are numerous other guides dedicated to Artian farming and crafting so this guide will not cover that. However, before crafting well rolled Artian bows, the following bows can be used for their respective elements as good endgame options:
- Fire: Dark Filament
- Water: Bookwilthe’s Punisher
- Ice: Windbrace Ibami
- Thunder: Fulgurbow Guardiana
- Dragon: Verzweiflung
- Raw: Griefbringer Urstox
Conclusion
I hope you have an amazing time with the Bow in Monster Hunter Wilds! Hopefully this guide was helpful. If you have any other questions or just want to team up for a hunt, you’re always welcome to stop by at twitch/katkitsy. See you out there, and happy hunting! :)
Appendix
Due to numerous requests here are the buttons and basic combo for Xbox & Playstation.
Xbox
Normal Shot: RT
Quick Shot: B
Tracer Arrow: X
Coatings: Y
Power Shot: B after Normal Shot, Quick Shot, or Tracer
Power Volley: B after Power Shot
Charging Sidestep: A
Dragon Piercer: Y+B
Thousand Dragons: RT+Y+B
Focus Fire: LT+RB
Arc Shot: RT+LT+B
Flying Swallow Shot: Y after Charging Sidestep
Jumping Melee: Y in the air off Seikret or a ledge
Dashing Attack: Y while scaling a wall
Basic Combo:
Bow Charge 2 > Normal Shot > Power Shot > Power Volley if monster allows > Charging
Sidestep > Repeat
Hold RT till Bow Charge 2 > RT > B > B > A > Repeat from Step 2
Playstation
Normal Shot: R2
Quick Shot: O
Tracer Arrow: ☐
Coatings: △
Power Shot: O after Normal Shot, Quick Shot, or Tracer
Power Volley: O after Power Shot
Charging Sidestep: X
Dragon Piercer: △+O
Thousand Dragons: R2+△+O
Focus Fire: L2+R1
Arc Shot: R2+L2+O
Flying Swallow Shot: △ after Charging Sidestep
Jumping Melee: △ in the air off Seikret or a ledge
Dashing Attack: △ while scaling a wall
Basic Combo:
Bow Charge 2 > Normal Shot > Power Shot > Power Volley if monster allows > Charging
Sidestep > Repeat
Hold R2 till Bow Charge 2 > R2 > O > O > X > Repeat from Step 2
Basic Combo (Continued)
I also want to note some additional advanced play in the Appendix:
Advanced Gameplay (Xbox/PlayStation)
Dodge Cancel: Thousand Dragons has a long animation commitment that locks the character in place after firing it. If you dodge after the attack, you can start moving immediately.
Power Shot Cancel: During a basic combo, pressing both inputs at nearly the same time allows both normal shot and power shot to occur much faster, cancelling part of the animation.
Flying Swallow Jump: Flying Swallow Jump can be used to move around the arena in ways that are impossible for other weapons. For instance, we can scale short walls, or even jump over or around monsters. This single move makes the bow the most agile weapon in the game.
Fast Mounting: With piercing ammo, each jumping melee hits multiple times, allowing for much faster mounts than usual.
Fast Wound Break: Focus Strike: Hailstorm can only lock onto one wound at a time, making it difficult to break multiple wounds. If a monster has explosive arrows from Arc Shot attached to it, Focus Strike will lock onto every wound at once.
Charging Sidestep + Dashing Attack: Charging Sidestep into a wall allows us to instantly go into a Dashing Attack and allows us to aim. Usually, aiming on the wall results in a Jumping Melee instead of a Dashing Attack. This can also be used to evade moves on the ground.
Gathered Screens (Images)
(Images from the appendix showing the build screens and skill trees are included here in the original document.)
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