Someone please explain the Kulve Weapons

[Chomp Dude]

So now that MR Kulve is a thing I need a little help here. When HR Kulve first came out I was on a hiatus from MHW. I remember fighting her a little but I never really farmed her or her weapons. As such I never really got a feel for what weapons were good or not, or how the weapon system really worked. For all intents and purposes I'm only interested in collecting each element of a hammer (like Safi). So here are my questions.

1. How do you know if you've gotten the best iteration of each weapon? Is Kjarr the best? I've seen Kjarr, Gyre and Taroth from the few weapons I have farmed.

2. Is it better to farm the weapons from HR Kulve now or is it better to make them at the melder with the MR mats?

3. How does upgrading affect getting the best version of each weapon? Do all versions of the hammers get maxed out the same way?

[lexilogo]

1. You can generally tell by Rarity. Kjaar weapons are the best. If a Kulve weapon has a nickname, like "Taroth Pipe "Sleep"", that usually indicates a mid-tier Kulve weapon. If a Kulve weapon has a plain name like "Spew Gold Flute" then it's the lowest tier of Kulve weapon. (note: Lower tier Kulve weapons, however, have lower Rarities which equals more augmentations)

2. HR Kulve is best for weapon farming.

3. Upgrading Kulve weapons is like upgrading armor, there is no way to do it "wrong", you just invest your materials into the weapon and it gets stronger.

[Numeriku]

If you own Iceborne then you'll want to aim for Kjarr and Taroth only. Pre-Iceborne there were some purples that were meta, but even upgraded in Iceborne they fall below Safi and other weapons.

If you have a ton of left over materials from HR kulve, then meld them (do Kjarr melding only imo, because it gives both Kjarr and Taroth weapons.) If you don't have tons of leftover materials, do the siege, though I'd look up if the weapon(s) you're after are actually an improvement over Safi or other MR weapons (so far, many seem meh.)

Sadly, no. Because Kulve weapons are not like Safi (aka the base stats are the same across the board) some weapons will be better than others. There are some Kulve weapons for example that despite being maxed out still remain in blue sharpness, or never get a decoration slot, which really sucks.

[Kawalorn]

Generally you want to go for Kjarr because usually they are the new best weapons if you want to go for elemental, thanks to built in Critical Element. In case of raw there is almost no weapon worth going for at all. I'm personally not aware of any but I heard some muttering on forums.

HR Kulve is better, because you can get a lot of weapons from siege itself, and the materials it drops aren't that much worse for melding compared to MR.

You just max them with materials. No choice involved. Each Kjarr element might have different end stat (so for example fire will have different raw and element compared to water).

[Ragosta tin Dei]

1. Kjarr are weapon drops from ATKT and are the rarest and the only viable options for MR.
2. It is more efficient to farmr them via the MR quest. ATKT takes about 17 minutes to kill with a premade team on average. I assume the time is lower now but it is easier to just farm MRKT with randoms, albeit it will cost more RP.
3. Upgrading KT weapons are just like upgrading armors. Each KT piece gives a certain value and the goal is to hit lvl 12 using the KT bits you get from the hunt. They are not like upgrading safi weapons.