physical vs elemental

[Magma Dragoon]

Should I use the Defender weapons exclusively or can elemental damage make up for the big attack differences? Looking for any advantage I can get over Diablos and Nergigante.

[Reborn]

defender weapons are massively better than anything else pre iceborne also element is best when using crit element skill

[TheVoidSpirit]

Originally posted by Reborn:

defender weapons are massively better than anything else pre iceborne

This is true, but I would still recommend to not use them ever. They take muich of the challenge from the early game. Same thing with the armor.

[ApathicAlpaca]

If you're new, definitely listen to TheVoidSpirit and use the 'regular' weapons. Defender was added with IB to make rushing through vanilla content a breeze.
However you will not learn a lot about monsters or weapons that way, they are that OP (intentionally).

[Kawalorn]

As said above Defender weapons are not balanced for proper difficulty in base game, so unless you are willing to "cheat" don't use them.

Most of the time Raw is better than Elemental but it also depends on what weapon you are using. What would that be?

[Magma Dragoon]

Dang, I was hoping the OPedness of the armor was due to the fact it was HR and there was something about elemental I just didn't get. I've been using the hammer to bonk things on the head. Against Diablos and his do-the-thing-until-you-run-out-of-screamer-pods I am absolutely willing to cheat. Hammer is so slow elemental can't make up the difference in power. How about a bow with the relevant elemental attack skill maxed?

[Gaoh]

The general rule is that elemental damage is optimal for weapons that deal lots of weak hits, and raw more important for the rest. Concretely, that means Dual Blades and bow are the two weapons that really rely on element. Light BowGun also make good use of elemental ammo but that is a very different mechanism.

The reason is that elemental damage is a fixed amount added to every attack (and weapons across all types generally carry the same range of elemental attribute), whereas raw damage depends on which attack you use. For instance, a DB Demon Dance consists of 16 individually weak attacks that add up to roughly the same amount of raw damage as a GreatSword's slow and massive True Charged Slash, but the DB apply their flat elemental damage 16 times and the GS only once. The ratio of element to raw damage is thus much higher for DB.

Without going too deep in the details, that is the gist of it.

Originally posted by Magma Dragoon:

Hammer is so slow elemental can't make up the difference in power.

Correct! Hammer is the weapon that deals the slowest, biggest hits with GS; they are the two weapons that care the least about element. (It is also a very mobile weapon and does very well against Diablos, though admittedly I have experience on my side.)

Originally posted by Magma Dragoon:

How about a bow with the relevant elemental attack skill maxed?

Also correct! Diablos has a pronounced weakness to ice, so a good ice bow would be a fine choice to exploit that.

[BOWSER]

If you go the elemental route then you have to match the monster's weakness to get the most advantage.

Diablos is weak to Ice and Nergigante is weak to Thunder so you need to farm multiple weapons.

Hammer is good until the end of Icebourne btw. Any weapons is. Learn to do the Charge into Clutch Claw attack with the hammer for the most fun.

[Nia夕莉]

Originally posted by Magma Dragoon:

Dang, I was hoping the OPedness of the armor was due to the fact it was HR and there was something about elemental I just didn't get. I've been using the hammer to bonk things on the head. Against Diablos and his do-the-thing-until-you-run-out-of-screamer-pods I am absolutely willing to cheat. Hammer is so slow elemental can't make up the difference in power. How about a bow with the relevant elemental attack skill maxed?

i wouldn't go into detail very deep

but generally element are benefits and suits the weapon with fast attack like DB/Bow

while some weapon (usually melee) that has longer swing animation (we call this MV or Motion Value) the higher the motion value are the more that weapon will benefits with Raw Damage

so if you using stuff like Greatsword,Hammer,Longsword don't go for elemental either go for elementless or status like poision,paralyze,blast (most popular choice is blast because it's a bonus damage and contribute to flinch build up)

if you're using LS then you should be familiar with it most powerful attack : helmsplitter that attack scaling on Raw and has minus elemental modifier

and for bow you still wanna prioritize elemental then follow with crit eye,crit boost,WEX and follow with stuff like mighty bow,foceshot,spreadshot jewel etc.

only time attackboost (or any raw damage boost skill/jewel) were use on Bow is when we running blast bow which only suit for solo and only few monster in the game

[Gaoh]

Originally posted by BOWSER:

If you go the elemental route early then you have to match the monster's weakness to get the most advantage.

I would even say that in Monster Hunter's system, monsters are essentially immune to elements that are not their weakness.

Originally posted by BOWSER:

Nergigante is weak to Thunder

Getting a bit technical here: Nergi has fairly low elemental hitzones, with the best being 20 Thunder on the horns, so Thunder is the one it is weakest to but still not much of a weakness. It's fair to say element is not a great match for Nergi.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Elemental builds have more complexity and thinking required on your part because:
a) You need much more resources to build multiple weapons, one for each element
b) You need to check lists with elemental hitzones values, some monsters may have '3 star weakness' and still be better served with raw (like Nergigante Gaoh just mentioned). Monster should have easily reachable parts with a good elemental modifiers (20+).
c) Elemental cannot crit naturally, you need sets for that, complicating build options
d) While indeed elemental damage ignores motion values (for clarity you could call them 'attack modifiers'), that also means super-strong attacks will deal the same elemental damage as very weak ones. Thus, DB and Bow excel here. But the 'fast attacks = elemental build is good' rule doesnt ot hold true for IG, for example, so don't rely too much on it.


For starting until story end it's probably best to use raw (i. e. Blast these days) damage build, in contrast to element there are not many monsters with serious resistance to cutting or blunt damage.

[Sery]

Defender weapons are better until iceborne but you get the negative effect of being a scrub bruh

[Magma Dragoon]

Originally posted by Gaoh:

Originally posted by BOWSER:

If you go the elemental route early then you have to match the monster's weakness to get the most advantage.

I would even say that in Monster Hunter's system, monsters are essentially immune to elements that are not their weakness.

Originally posted by BOWSER:

Nergigante is weak to Thunder

Getting a bit technical here: Nergi has fairly low elemental hitzones, with the best being 20 Thunder on the horns, so Thunder is the one it is weakest to but still not much of a weakness. It's fair to say element is not a great match for Nergi.

I'm getting Eve Online flashbacks. Does MHW have a good damage calculator program similar to EFT?

[Jeembo]

Originally posted by SerYreS:

Defender weapons are better until iceborne but you get the negative effect of being a scrub bruh

Is this an in game debuff?

[Nia夕莉]

Originally posted by Magma Dragoon:

Originally posted by Gaoh:

I would even say that in Monster Hunter's system, monsters are essentially immune to elements that are not their weakness.

Getting a bit technical here: Nergi has fairly low elemental hitzones, with the best being 20 Thunder on the horns, so Thunder is the one it is weakest to but still not much of a weakness. It's fair to say element is not a great match for Nergi.

I'm getting Eve Online flashbacks. Does MHW have a good damage calculator program similar to EFT?

you need to look up mod called smart hunter it should provide enough information but else there's spreadsheet of elemental and hit zone value out there somewhere just google it

[Sery]

Originally posted by Jeembo:

Originally posted by SerYreS:

Defender weapons are better until iceborne but you get the negative effect of being a scrub bruh

Is this an in game debuff?

Good Question. Technically yes, but its only seen by other players