5 best Monster Hunter Now beginners tips

Niantic and Capcom’s recent release, Monster Hunter Now, has taken the gaming world by storm. Despite having been released a few days ago on September 14, 2023, it has already bagged one million downloads on the Play Store. In this action RPG title, you hunt monsters and complete quests to advance the story. The game offers various melee and ranged weapons that you can use to slay gigantic foes.

The controls are optimized for a mobile interface, and you'll be tapping the screen to attack and flicking right or left to dodge. You can also upgrade your weapons, unlock their Special Skills, and enhance their damage. With that said, this article provides some of the best tips that can help you start your Monster Hunter Now journey well-prepared.

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Best tips to start strong in Monster Hunter Now

1) Upgrade weapons wisely

There are six types of weapons in Monster Hunter Now (Image via Niantic)

Monster Hunter Now offers six weapon types: Sword and Shield, Long Sword, Great Sword, Hammer, Light Bowgun, and Bow. Each type has its variants, which you can forge using materials dropped from monsters. You can upgrade and overgrade each weapon, unlocking Special Skills and enhancing its overall stats.

However, leveling up to higher levels consumes rarer materials and requires slaying the same monster multiple times. Therefore, haphazardly upgrading and unlocking every weapon from each type would be less practical. The best way to approach the process is by first finding the weapon type that matches your playstyle and then upgrading weapons within the particular type. You should also boost the ones with elements such as Poison, Water, and more for an elemental advantage.

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2) Understand the monster’s abilities and weaknesses

All large monsters have weaknesses that you can exploit to deal significant damage (Image via Niantic)

Currently, 13 giant and five tiny monsters populate Monster Hunter Now’s World. Small monsters are easy to defeat and onlt drop a single material. On the contrary, large monsters have abilities, elemental types, unique attacking styles, and weaknesses. For instance, Great Jagras, the first gigantic monster you encounter, is weak to the Poison and Fire elements, so using weapons matching the Great Jagras’s weakness type makes taking it down easy.

Additionally, you need to pay attention to how they move and their attack animations while battling so that you can dodge incoming attacks. Monsters glow red when ready to unleash their blow, and performing a perfect dodge enables you to counterattack it, dealing additional damage. You can learn about all the monsters you’ve unlocked from the in-game Monster Guide menu.

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3) Use Paintballs effectively

Paintballs can mark large Monster Hunter Now monsters, enabling you to hunt them later (Image via Niantic)

Paintballs make hunting convenient in Monster Hunter Now because they can mark giant monsters, enabling you to battle them later. However, the tagged monster appears in the Paintball List only for two days, and you must slay them before the time limit. Palico and Regular are two types of Paintballs. The former replenishes automatically, up to three each day. Regular Paintballs can be tough to find in this free-to-play title, and you can only obtain them using Gems, the rare in-game currency.

Therefore, you should rely on Palico Paintballs to mark monsters and save Regular ones for monsters with high stars because these beasts drop rarer materials, which can be crucial for forging or upgrading robust weapons.

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4) Aim for the Breakable Parts of monsters

Great Jagras's Breakable Parts in Monster Hunter Now (Image via Niantic)

Each giant monster in Monster Hunter Now has Breakable Parts and breaking them grants additional material drops. Additionally, you deal more damage when hitting them. For instance, the Great Jagras’s Breakable Parts are Head, Stomach, and Forelegs.

You can equip Kulu-Ya-Ku Headgear and use its skill, Lock On, to lock onto a specific body part. Additionally, Hammer and Great Sword weapon types help break these parts efficiently. Visit this action RPG title's in-game Monster Guide menu to learn about each monster’s Breakable Parts.

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5) Create a diverse armor set

You can forge various armor using materials dropped by large monsters in Monster Hunter Now (Image via Niantic)

In Monster Hunter Now, an armor set comprises Headgear, Trouser, Belt, Gloves, and Mail. You can craft monster-specific armor sets. For instance, Jagras, Kulu-Ya-Ku, Pukei Pukei, and other monsters’ armor sets require their respective body parts to forge. The upgrade process works similarly to weapons, needing the specific monster’s materials that you used to make it.

Therefore, it’s best to make and equip armor from different beasts. This diversifies your material needs and makes the upgrade process quick. For instance, using Kulu-Ya-Ku’s Headgear, Pukei Pukei Mail, and Great Girros’s gloves hastens the upgrade process. This way, you do not have to wait for a single monster to appear multiple times to level up your entire set.