If in other Monster Hunter games you eat at the Canteen for buffs, in Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin you use the Prayer Pot to get buffs. The Prayer Pot provides two different kinds of buffs: Prayer, which is only active as long as you’re out of town; and Charm, which is activated out of town and for a set duration. There are 10 types of Prayers and Charms in Monster Hunter Stories 2. From Buying and Selling that changes the amount of money you get/spend when shopping, Recovery for health regeneration after a turn, to Training that adds extra EXP.
While it sounds like you might want to have both Prayer and Charm active all the time, there is something that makes it impossible to achieve. Monster Hunter YouTuber and Gunlance guru Caoslayer reveals the truth behind the vague Prayer Pot effects. Read on and watch the video below for all the juicy details.
Monster Hunter Stories 2 – Can Prayer and Charm Effects Actually Stack?
In his latest video, Caoslayer tried to answer five different questions regarding Prayer and Charm effects in Monster Hunter Stories 2. But the most important thing is: do Prayer and Charm actually stack? If you don’t feel like watching the 4 minutes 30 seconds long video or just prefer to read, the answers can be read below as well.
1. Do Charms and Prayers effects stack?
From using Recovery Prayer alone in a Challenge Quest and then adding Recovery Charm afterward, Caoslayer discovered that any Prayer and Charm that has the same effect don’t seem to stack. In both cases, both his character and Reverto only got the same 45 and 69 health back after one turn. As a side note though, Charms will stay active “indefinitely” if you do Challenge Quests. Since the countdown timer only starts when you’re out of town, while these quests can be started from inside of a town.
2. Then, can Charm and Prayer with different effects be active together?
After testing out both Recovery Charm and Prayer, Caoslayer then replaced the Recovery Charm with Mounting Charm. Hoping that he can get both Kinship bonus and health recovery. Turns out the result is quite disappointing: The Mounting Charm works, but not for the Recovery Prayer. After his turn is finished, his party doesn’t get any health back.
3. Are Prayers really useless, then?
No, not quite. By only running a Recovery Prayer in a Challenge Quest (without any Charm), it’s obvious that the health recovery effect is still being applied. From this result, we can safely assume that the Prayer effect will only be active after your Charm duration runs out.
4. Do Charms work in Expeditions?
They do. However, the Charm effect seems to be dictated by the quest host.
5. Do Charms work in PVP Quests?
By running an Offline Tournament Mode, Caoslayer found that Charm and Prayer don’t seem to work in a PVP quest. Makes a bit of sense since removing passive buffs makes the playing field between players more consistent.
To put it simply: Prayers have extremely negligible effects and are only there as a backup in case your Charm durations have run out. This makes it still somewhat useless though considering once you unlock Expeditions, you will be drowning in Charms anyway. I hope this revelation will help your hunts. Don’t forget to check out our guides on other games such as Genshin Impact and Tribes of Midgard. Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin is now available on PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch.