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Your weapon is your class in Monster Hunter Rise and as with any action RPG, the class you pick determines how much fun you have. Well, fun is subjective and can’t be quantified. However, the general idea of fun classes or weapons in video games is how much ‘oomph’ or power they give you. With that in mind, our Monster Hunter Rise weapon tier list can help with that.
The 14 Monster Hunter Rise weapons might look like meager offerings, but each of them provides a vastly different way to play the game, especially with the Sunbreak expansion and Silkbind attacks in consideration. Let’s start with the best.
Top Tier – The Best Weapons in Monster Hunter Rise
While it’s true that all weapons are viable and are good in Monster Hunter Rise, some of them are too powerful for too little effort. If beginners pick the best weapons in Monster Hunter Rise, they even get an easier time. They practically just stumbled upon an overpowered weapon.
Of course, if you want something that you can consider as ‘easy mode’ in a game with just one set difficulty level, consider the following in our Monster Hunter Rise weapon tier list.
- Long Sword – The Long Sword is both newbie-friendly and powerful. You can owe a lot to its Spirit Combo (for damage) and its forgiving animations. The Silkbind move sets play off this strength, allowing you to counterattack seamlessly and dish out more Spirit Blade attacks.
- Great Sword – On the other end of the weight spectrum, there’s the Great Sword. You get to cut parts and also stun the monsters. You can deal even more damage compared to Long Sword users once you get used to the heft. Surprisingly, the Silkbind move set partially focuses on defense. The Switch Skill helps with speed (or lack thereof).
- Bow – Unsurprisingly, the Bow also has a good reputation. It’s practically the Long Sword of ranged weapons; easy to use yet strong. You don’t need to complicate it too much for it to dominate most monsters. Meanwhile, the Silkbind moves are stellar and flexible, combining mobility, Stamina, and high damage.
- Hunting Horn – Prior to Sunbreak, this weapon would have seen a lower ranking, but the Silkbind moves added a crutch and it’s now an awesome elemental weapon. Even its biggest weaknesses such as the lack of mobility, were fixed by a Silkbind move.
It’s a different story without Sunbreak, however. The Silkbind moves buffed most of the weapons. Hence, our Monster Hunter Rise weapon tier list relies on the expansion. Do yourself a favor though, grab it if you don’t already have it.
Great, but You Have to Work Harder Tier
That heading sums up the essence of these Monster Hunter Rise weapons. Under your skilled hands, you can match the output and performance of similarly skilled Long Sword, Great Sword, or Bow users but just know that they took less effort to get there.
Some of these weapons also might have some wasted Silkbind moves.
- Dual Blade – The Dual Blade weapons have always catered to players with lower self-preservation since they focus mostly on offense. That’s still true for Monster Hunter Rise. The Silkbind moves even accentuate this ‘hit fast and hit often’ playstyle.
- Switch Axe – The Switch Axe has a simple move set, making it easy to use but some transformation attacks are impractical and are overshadowed. Still, if value mobility, then it’s quite hard to match.
- Insect Glaive – Speaking of mobility, the Insect Glaive is as confounding as ever. It’s the best weapon mounting though not something you’ll want to toy with if you lack foresight.
- Light Bowgun – Light Bowgun is a safe weapon and something that works in all situations but you need to be patient with it since its damage output is a little too tame.
- Sword & Shield – It’s a versatile weapon and something safe, but the range can leave a lot to be desired. Moreover, despite its apparent simplicity, you need plenty of experience to make this weapon excel.
- Charge Blade – By far the most versatile weapon in Monster Hunter Rise, but as always, it’s also one of the most complicated. It’s easy to mess up combos and usually requires strict timing.
- Gunlance – The Gunlance, like the Light Bowgun, doesn’t care much about the monster’s activities. It will either stun the monster or let you block most attacks. Awesome weapon if you’re careless.
On to the next tier. They might be last, but they’re not the least.
Good Tier
Again, we’d like to reiterate that these are still good weapons. It’s just that their attack animations can often feel clunky and the Silkbind or even Switch Skills didn’t do much for them.
- Hammer – The weapon requires too much rigid positioning if you want to maximize it. It’s also too reliant on charged attacks since other moves are harder to pull off.
- Lance – A bit similar to the Hammer in its heavy reliance on positioning. It’s also less handy than the Gunlance.
- Heavy Bowgun – The nerfs hit this weapon hard and if you want to make it work, it relies too much on elemental weaknesses and matchups with monsters.
With a little bit of mastery, however, you can take these weapons to the endgame.
Granted you’ll probably have an easier time with the higher-ranked ones in our Monster Hunter Rise weapon tier list.
