Contents
General Bow Gameplay
This section will cover the generic concepts of Bow users. This will not cover specific [Insert Hunting Style]-Bow usage, but rather to emphasize general ideas that you should be thinking about. For first time players, there is a lot of mental work involved in managing all of a Bow's mechanics, many of which are not intuitive to people who are new to Gunner weapons in Monster Hunter.The Bow requires more practice than other weapons to reach a desirable hunt completion time.
Gameplay: Control Schemes
MHGen offers two different control schemes, but these control schemes can change based on what Hunter Style you are using. I will briefly summarize the schemes, but detailed information can be found online on the Capcom MH: Generations Manual.
- Type 1: This is the control scheme used in previous Monster Hunter games. For this scheme, you hold X to draw and charge an arrow and R to access the aiming reticle. You can unsheathe your weapon and start charging an arrow with X.
- Type 2: This control scheme is catered to the Nub-stick on the N3DS and a Control pad Pro. For this scheme, you hold R to draw and charge an arrow and X to toggle the aiming reticle. To unsheathe your Bow and start charging an arrow simultaneously, you hit R+X+A.
Each of the Hunting Styles will affect the following control schemes differently. However, in general, you can dodge roll with an arrow drawn by tapping Y or B and a direction on the Slide-Pad. Hitting B with no direction held will result in a backhop. Both the backhop and dodge rolls have the same invulnerability frames. X+A is used to load Bow coatings. A more detailed run-down of the Adept Bow's controls can be found here.
There are many ways to tweak these settings to your preferences in the Options menu of MHGen. I strongly suggest using the Village 1* Bow Tutorial quest to try out different control schemes and tweak the Bow settings to your preferences. One way to set up Type 2 controls is to follow /u/Arctruth's guide here.
Although each control scheme has its strengths and weaknesses, using either control scheme does not instantly make you a better Bow user. Repeated practice with a control scheme will enable you to exploit its strengths effectively and work around its weaknesses. Player skill is a larger determining factor to the effectiveness of either Type 1 or Type 2 controls than the control scheme itself.
Gameplay: Using the Bow
I will concentrate on explaining my approach here. There are many ways to approach the Bow and I am not claiming that my approach is the best. This is mainly to give insight into how I approach the Bow and I hope this will be useful for people.
I will separate Bow usage into three components: (1) Charging shots, (2) Aiming shots, and (3) Positioning. These components happen concurrently during a hunt: As you are charging your shot, you will want to think about what you are going to hit and where you want to stand to hit it. It takes practice for these three components to become second nature.
Charging Shots
Charging your shots is critical to the Bow. As you hold down your main attack button (X for Type 1, R for Type 2), your nocked arrow charges. As it charges, the flahes on the bow get brighter. Each flash indicates that the Bow has reached a higher charge level. Higher charge levels convey larger raw and elemental multipliers to your shot. As a result, uncharged shots (ones where you just tap X/R and let go) deal very little damage.
Charging shots drain stamina at a constant rate. Stamina is important for many things, including sprinting, evade-rolling and dealing damage effectively with a Bow. You do not want to run out of stamina with a Bow. More importantly, you want to keep track of your stamina so you are not charging a shot as a monster is about to hit you and you lack enough stamina to evade roll the attack.
Stamina Management is a really important player skill to have when using the Bow. Managing your stamina improperly is detrimental to your effectiveness with the Bow. Some examples of poor stamina management are as follows:
- Holding a shot for too long and running out of stamina (what I call overcharging a shot)
- Excessively using Power Shots. Power Shots are a huge stamina drain so you need to make sure they connect cleanly
One strategy to stamina management is timing your shots appropriately. Let us assume that it takes y seconds for your shot to charge up to the desired level. The best time to let your arrows loose is exactly at y seconds. If you charge your arrow for y + 20 seconds, you do not deal more damage than if you had only charged for y seconds. Getting this timing down takes a lot of practice. Effectively using these timings will increase your effectiveness in a hunt.
Since rate of stamina drain from charging shots is constant, decreasing the time needed to hit a desired charge level will also reduce overall stamina consumption. Focus is a valuable armour skill for the Bow, because it reduces the time you spend charging to a desired shot level but does not increase the rate of stamina drain. For the same charge level, a shot with Focus will consume less stamina than a shot without Focus.
Using Focus brings with it one caveat: Timing shots becomes much more important. Let us assume you take b seconds to reach the desired charge level with Focus. To get the most use out of Focus, you need to fire your shot after b seconds and before y seconds. This is because if you have Focus but still take y seconds to charge a shot, you lose the stamina reduction benefit that Focus confers.
An advanced strategy to take stamina management skills further is timing your shots to the moments when a monster is vulnerable to attack. If you take b seconds to charge a shot, the best time to start charging is b seconds before the monster becomes susceptible to attack. This takes a lot of practice and requires a lot skill. However, this playstyle is very rewarding.
The need for Stamina Management is removed with infinite stamina. Dash Juice, Mega Dash Juice, stamina songs from Hunting Horns and Mushroomancer can provide infinite stamina. However, I discourage learning the Bow with infinite stamina tools. Learning effective stamina management does not only teach you how to not consume stamina needlessly but it also teaches you good habits in the process, particularly in timing your shots effectively.
To summarise, charging your shots is really important becuase higher charged shots have higher raw and elemental damage multipliers. Charging your shots consumes stamina. Managing your stamina well is necessary to be successful with the Bow.
Aiming Shots
Charging your shots is one half of dealing effective damage. The other half is connecting on the right hitzone. All monsters are split into different hitzones, some of which are more susceptible to damage than others. By concentrating your arrow shots on these weaker hitzones, you increase your damage output.
For example, when hunting Shagaru Magala, his head is a 60 shot hitzone, and his neck and back legs are 45 shot hitzones[Src]. You want to prioritise shooting its head if using Raw-Rapid shots; if the head is unavailable or troublesome because Shagaru is not facing you, consider hitting his back leg.
Weak hitzones are not always heads. Teostra's weakest shot hitzone is its tail, at 60 [Src]. It is important to research the hitzones of the monster you are fighting. Resources like Kiranico are very useful for this.
Using the aiming reticle can be helpful for hitting weak hitzones accurately. On flat ground, it is possible to connect on weak hitzones without the use of the aiming reticle. Examples of such monsters are Gore Magala, Rathian, and Shagaru Magala. It is important to get a good feel for how arrows travel without any aimint reticle adjustment. Unfortunately, some monsters do require aiming reticle use, such as Zinogre, who has a 70 shot hitzone on his head and requires you to aim upwards.
When elevation comes into play, the Bow becomes much harder. Shots do not behave very predictably and I have not found a reliable way to describe how they travel when you stand on an incline. In these situations, you will have to use the aiming reticle to aim every shot. It is easier to do this with Type 2; Type 1 requires a lot more effort. You can consider positioning yourself on flatter ground or throwing a dungbomb to chase a monster away into a flatter area. Knowing a monster's attacks very well will enable you to adapt to the inclines much better.
Accurately aiming and hitting weak hitzones takes practice and experience. Being patient with your shots is important and make them count. A clean shot on a weak hitzone will deal a lot more damage overall than a clean shot on a non-weak hitzone.
Positioning
The final component to effective Bow usage is positioning. Good positioning involves standing in the safe zones of a monster's different attacks, keeping yourself in critical distance to maximise your damage, and using your positioning to chain into more shots. Additionally, knowing a monster's attacks, tells, and behaviour will improve your ability to position well against a monster.
Let me illustrate this with Shagaru Magala's frontal blasts. Shagaru fires two blasts, one of which explodes horizontally and perpendicular to Shagaru's face. The second blast that follows is "T-shaped," and extends vertically past Shagaru's face. If you face Shagaru, you can position yourself to stand away from the horizontal blast and fire a shot. You can start charging your second shot and side step to avoid the vertical blast to get your second shot in.
Good positioning is about knowing a monster's attacks and using those attack patterns to aggressively retaliate in damage. It is about knowing the right places to stand to avoid damage and using those positions to hit weak hitzones.
Effectove positioning requires standing in critical distance. Critical distance provides a 1.5x raw multiplier (no elemental bonus) to your shots. You want as many of your shots as possible land in critical distance. This is indicated by a screen shake when the arrows connect.
Pierce, Rapid, Heavy, and Spread shots have different critical distances. Knowing these distances and adapting to them is important. In general, Spread shots have the closest critical distance, followed by Rapid, then Pierce. Heavy Shot has a wide critical distance range, but its arrows lose height quickly, making them trickier to use.
Positioning keeps you alive when using the Bow and enables you to deal damage. This is important in the end-game content of MHGen, where mistakes can result in taking a lot of damage. Although certain mechanics like Evasion Hunter Arts and Adept Evades can mitigate some positioning mistakes, using these mechanics to position or reposition yourself is an important facet of keeping up your aggression.
Summary version
- Manage your stamina well
- Do not hold a shot for too long; roll out shots if your opening to land one has disappeared
- Do not use Power/Arc shots excessively; watch your stamina usage! The backswing animation can kill you
- Assume it takes z seconds to charge your shot. The best time to charge your shot is about z seconds before your opening appears
- Hit weak hitzones. Know what these are and pew pew pew!
- Elevation sucks. Dung Bombs to chase monsters into flatter areas, fight in flatter areas, or adjust and be quick with using the aiming reticle
- Critical Distance. Stay in Critical Distance. 1.5x raw multiplier
- Use coatings! Level 1 Power Coatings are a 1.35x raw multiplier and Level 2 Power Coatings are a 1.5x raw multipler! Use them, and bring combines for more
- Know the monster well. Figure out where to stand. Know how to avoid their attacks and use their attack animations against them
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