Bowgun build for master rank?

[Mr Robert House]

I’ve used bow guns but havnt built for them, and have no idea what i’m doing. I made one that can fire pierce 3, but the recoil makes it unusable. Spread ammo seems to be just be bad, doing less damage than my long sword and requiring you to be at point blank range. i’ve seen super high levells spamming sticky explosives, which i can only carry 9 of, they’re good but again idk how to make that as powerful as they make it look

[Andy_RK]

You can craft ammo during the fight using the radial shortcut, so the actual ammo you can carry is actually higher. Once your ammo reserve is depleted, use farcaster to restock from the camp. If you are going LBG, try using elemental or sticky. That spread & pierce ammo are usually used for HBG (you can put shield mod for your HBG if you're still afraid of going close to the monster)

[IxianMace]

I found these videos to be helpful when I was learning about heavy bowguns. Maybe they'll give you ideas for your own builds. Note that some details (like being able to carry 10 bomberries) may be out of date.

Heavy bowgun weapon tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42YPVTEtneo

Heavy bowgun starter build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9PGfk7T2ZY

Recommended pierce heavy bowgun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIaw_Su2pjc

Recommended spread heavy bowgun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhFO7lO8MTk

[Mr Robert House]

Oh, there are light and heavy bowguns…

Kind of embarrassing forgetting that at MR 50 but i just ignored guns because of the complexity

I’ve been using a heavy, it has type 3 spread and pierce

[Honorable_D]

For Pierce you have Tobi Kadachi, but you'll have to augment it to the max to make it better than Nargacuga. The lower rarity custom mods and more augments make it win out eventually.

For Spread you'll want Zinogre.

Sticky you'll want Rajang.

Eventually both the Spread and Pierce Heavy Bowguns will be replaced with Safi's Burst and Sniper cannons.

[Mr Robert House]

Any reccomendations on armour skills? i definitely want evade extender and probably some quick sheath and / or speed eating then the buffs for the ammo type i’m using obviously. anything else super important? earplugs i’m guessing? to headshot spam it while it roars

[Krow Dotman]

Early on choice doesn't really matter that much but as said Kadachi Lion is a really good Pierce one tho.

For later parts, the Big three are Demon Lord Beast Buster for Normal/Sticky/Cluster(Furious Rajang) and Safi Jiva Burst and Snipe for Spread and Pierce, alternatively Fatalis one, but that isn't as comfy as Safi ones for the dmg it offers imho, but it's really cheap to make and you don't even have to complete the fatty fight.

For armor, get full raging Brachdyus Beta and the 2 parts Alpha that have Artilery for Sticky. It has many slots, 3 free ofensive skills, nice resistances, and many slots to work with. For Skills, aside from the offensive ones like Agitator, WEX, CBO, etc you want Free Elem/Ammo Up/ Spare shot/ Guard(If you are like me and prefer to be comfy) Slugger(For stuns if you want and use impact mantle) and the Ammo type damage(Normal/Spread/Pierce Up). For end-game, Fatalis 4 piece with Velkhana Y Greaves and Attack Charm V has been working perfectly well for me and i have close to 1000 quests done with HBG.(Gunner main here) With most of my hunts averaging sub-10 and sub-5 mins. with Spread build.

[Smaugi]

Throw out speed eating , get free meal and use only max/ancient potions.
Spread is OP and Has The highest dps in the game.
You need skills to boost your ammo type and you stick to 1 ammo type per build.
Special scope is a 30% DMG boost.

[Honorable_D]

Here are some Rajang level builds, I'm even using a slight variation of the Pierce and Spread ones (I don't have all the deco combination jewels yet...) and I can solo kill Alatreon in around 13 min using Pierce ammo and carting to 1 nova.

https://imgur.com/a/4g7KjBC

[Doctor Teo]

Well, Ixian pretty much covered everything already. I'll just give the TL;DR:

First, learn what the good guns are for each type of ammo, and create a loadout around it. Different guns are capable of carrying different ammos, and on top of that treat ammo types differently -- in short, you're looking for something that holds a lot of the ammo of your choice (pierce/spread/normal) with a low reload time (fast/average) and/or low recoil (recoil +1/+2/+3). The lower the reload and recoil, the less time you spend flailing or reloading, and the less mods you need to offset longer recoil and reload speeds -- you only get 5 mods, and it's more important that you can reload and fire while walking than modding for pure damage.

If you like Pierce, I'd enter the game with the Nargacuga's "Baleful Night", or Ixian's suggestion of Crimson Kadachi II, at least until you get your hands on Fatallis-level weapons. Pierce ammo has long range, and deals more damage the larger an enemy is. It also gains significant benefit from the Super Scope mod, if you have room for it.

If you like Spread Ammo and want to go for the shotgun setup, there's a cheesy, easy-to-use setup that's highly effective against almost anything small-to-medium size using Loyal Thunder, the final upgrade to the Zinogre bow -- easy to grab, and exceeds even the Fatallis HBG in regards to Spread Ammo. Get enough recoil that you can fire Spread Shot 3 while moving, and then dump the rest into Shield Mods -- as long as you are aiming without firing, the Shield Mods will block most forms of damage to the same extent as a Lance's shield, all while doing nothing. You are going to need a few block-centric Decos to make it fully work (Ironguard Charm does the trick too), but it's an easy, high damage, powerful build against anything that doesn't ignore blocking, which is 90% of monsters. Fantastic for soloing.

Decoration picks are straightforwards: Deco for Pierce or Spread Ammo depending on which ammo you're using -- typically, better to focus in only one kind of ammo, but it's possible to make a combo Pierce+Normal build if you have a gun that's friendly with both types of ammo. For Shotgun build, pick up Ironguard so blocking is easier. For Pierce build, you tend to reposition a lot, so I like Evade Extender (the Namielle Y pants have Extender 3 by default if you want). For both builds, crit and crit boosts are nice -- Shotgun likes Weakness Exploit because you're usually always facing something's head, while Pierce prefers just having all-the-time crit from Expert decos; Maximum Might decos are also useful, as it gives twice the crit of Expert decos on condition that you keep full stamina, and shooting doesn't consume stamina (only dodging/blocking). Agitator is great for anyone, period.

In short, pick an ammo type, build towards making that one ammo type work. Find the guns that shoot that ammo the best, find the decos that boost that ammo type, and then bring the materials to craft that ammo mid-fight for when you run out. Everything else is just so you can shooty shooty more often.

[Mr Robert House]

I will say, you can’t really rely on a pierce build, it’s kind of embarrassing fighting a small monster with it. Definitely need alternatives

[Smaugi]

Originally posted by Mr Robert House:

I will say, you can’t really rely on a pierce build, it’s kind of embarrassing fighting a small monster with it. Definitely need alternatives

Spread?

[Mr Robert House]

Originally posted by Lord Gwyn:

Originally posted by Mr Robert House:

I will say, you can’t really rely on a pierce build, it’s kind of embarrassing fighting a small monster with it. Definitely need alternatives

Spread?

yeah, i’m planning on it, but making max tier weapons takes time

[Smaugi]

Originally posted by Mr Robert House:

Originally posted by Lord Gwyn:

Spread?

yeah, i’m planning on it, but making max tier weapons takes time

Its all about how far you are in the game , zinogres and safi guns can be great for spread if you don't have fatalis