Tips for Optimal Bow Usage

[taznkid]

I am starting to get a bit stuck.

I feel like I am stuck in a strange situation. I will give some examples.


EXAMPLES:
My first Blackveil Vaal Hazak hunt was around 40 minutes long, because for the life of me I could not find a weak spot to hit. If I remember correctly it was the head, but positioning myself to hit the head is like begging to get hit by its effluvium hyper beam.

Namielle was a easy hunt, but I still had the same problem: position myself to hit the head and get blasted by its hydro pump, or spend an absurd amount of time throughout the fight wounding the wings as an alternative. I went with the latter.

Teostra is even worse, as the arrows just bounce off everywhere when it gets that fire armor besides the "head", by which the game seems to define it as that tiny portion that is the face, and not stuff like the side of the head or the mane area.
EXAMPLES END HERE

As the head is often the weak spot on most monsters for ammo type damage, I would have to position myself to hit the head, but that means positioning myself where I get shot, trampled, pounced on, etc. For easy stuff like a Odagaron with its telegraphed movement and narrow hitbox? No problem. But say, a Barioth with its lawnmower tail? It's like a massive beyblade, a charge dash is not going to get you out of the way with that one.

Thus, I find myself often left with three choices:
1. Aim for the head, get bowled over, and get KO'ed as my character leisurely gets up

2. Position myself towards the side or behind, and therefore have much better survivability: and hit some nice, white numbers in the range of 0-10

3. Pray to god I don't get rekt when I clutch claw for wounds onto a part, and hope that wounding it boosts my damage (I still remember my first Flugur Anjanath hunt: it was going great, then I got 1 shot from 150 Health when it did this lightning tackle thing while I was clutch claw'ed)

Part of the problem for me is that I try to aim for the head from the side, but
1. Heads are so tiny compared to their bodies
2. The hitbox from the side of the head seems to be a bit wonky
3. Stuff like wings block it like 75% of the time and it annoys the hell out of me

The Bow is apparently a godlike DPS weapon, but I'm finding it so hard to hit weak spots consistently unless the stars align, and I am genuinely considering swapping weapons, which I would hate, because I love the range + mobility combination of the bow (tried Light Bowgun first, but reloading was annoying).

Anyway, sorry for the super long post, I appreciate those that read it and leave advice on how they kill stuff in like 3 minutes.

[Cozy]

I've played a little bit of bow but heres what I know

1. Build for elemental damage. around half of bow's damage can be elemental, so getting your element as high as you can will help out with damage. Best options are kajarr bows paired with either alatreon or safi armor or a mix of 2 ala 3 safi. Also if you are going to use ala 2 set bonus then eat for ele res L, it'll give a nice boost.

2. Avoid the dragon pierce and rock drops, they don't do good damage. Dragon pierce has a damage drop off at after a certain amount of hits so you're better off just shooting the weak point.

3. Get constitution and stamina surge in your build, eat for felyne black belt, or use a dash juice. Don't do all of these at once but the main point in this is that since you use stamina to shoot, the less stamina you use, the more you can do. I put constitution 2, and stamina surge 1 in my build and then use a dash juice.

4. If you're having trouble with the clutch claw, the fatalis update added a new skill called clutch claw boost that you make at the melder. It lets "light" weapons soften a spot with only one claw attack. Also claw softens got boosted to 3 min at this update

5. If you're getting hit alot then consider evade window up or extender. Evade extender is one of my favorite skills that at lvl 3 lets you fly across the arena.

6. Remember to stay in Critical Distance, if you don't know what i'm talking about:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MonsterHunter/comments/70s2v2/mhworld_tip_how_critical_distance_is_now_shown/

7. As for aim, I feel like thats just a matter of practice. I don't have much to offer here so I hope what I have can help

[Xeroze]

From my experience the trick is to play closer so it's both easier to aim and easier to dodge. You got to find the correct punishes for each attack of the monster through trial and error or watching the better players do it. Watch some videos from speedrunning guys like tidus69. I dont expect that degree of accuracy every time especially for controller users, but some of the aiming tricks and punishes for monsters can be replicated. Especially for longer fights late into the game.

[AfLIcTeD]

If you do decide to use evade extender, pick one level of it and stick with it. Eventually you will learn how far you slide and when/where to fire. If you switch between different levels of it you will mess your shots.

[Just Life]

Originally posted by Woogie:

2. Avoid the dragon pierce and rock drops, they don't do good damage.

The Rock Drops are useful if you are soloing. For most Low Tier monsters, you can chain knock down with them. Example, once a Rath is knocked down, do the normal DPS combo to a Rock Drop--->Power Shot--->Rock Drop then back to the DPS combo. If you have the Rock Drop lined up so that it drops on the head of the Rath, by the time it gets back up you will knock it back down again.

For higher Tier Monsters, it will take more time to build up the Knock Down with the Rock Drop so back to back chaining isn't highly possible.

I highly recommend watching this Video. It maybe long but has so much information and will improve your bow play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OccXXn2JxHg

[Virtus Tenebrae]

The general "best" way to balance stamina is Constitution 3 and Stamina Surge 2 while drinking Dash Juice. But I personally find it MUUUUCH easier to just take a Constitution 5 charm and whatever extra Stamina Surge you have to flavor. Monsters generally don't stand still long enough in multiplayer for the "optimal" bow crap to really shine, unless you're insanely good.

I've found that being able to dash around the monster near-constantly instead of having to weave stamina-positive combos much safer and more fun. Especially when you finally have Fatalis armor and the unlocked stamina bar.

[BlaqkShadw]

Evade extender is a game changer. Best comfort skill for bow outside of constitution/stamina surge imo.

[Virtus Tenebrae]

Other than that, don't go for the 5 arrow big damage spread shots unless you know you will get away with it. They have a decent animation lock, and will get you trampled quite a bit.

Make sure a Mighty Bow jewel is ALWAYS in your build somewhere. Enough Evade Window will let you dodge roll through a lot of what you can't outrun with your bow out. A Clutch Claw Boost jewel is amazing for bow, since it relies a lot on hitting tenderized weak points for 100% crit chance. Learn when it's actually safe to clutch claw though. Be patient, wait for the monster to lock itself into a lengthy animation or come out of a big attack. Don't be afraid to use a knockdown as an opportunity to tenderize the monster in multiple spots. The bow doesn't really do THAT much extra damage on a monster when it's on the ground compared to standing. Might as well use that golden opportunity to make every appendage give 30-50% affinity.

You're biggest damage boosts are Critical Element, and getting 100% critical chance. Critical Element is the armor bonus from Rathalos/Velkhana gear that boosts your elemental damage up on all your crits, which goes hand in hand with the 2nd thing I just mentioned in this paragraph.