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In Monster Hunter World, your monster-hunting weapons can be imbued by Element or Status Ailment. One thing you have to remember is that Element and Status are two different attributes. Element adds bonus percentage damage to your attacks, while Status builds up with each attack and eventually procs. So far, there are five Elements: Fire, Water, Thunder, Ice, and Dragon. With five different types, how can you know which is the best Element you should utilize on a hunt?
MHW: The Best Element You Should Use For Your Weapons
The best Element you should use in MHW is the one the monster you’re fighting is weak against. In base World, lots of monsters are weak against Thunder, while in Iceborne, most are weak to Ice. Nevertheless, because each monster has its own Elemental weaknesses, building different sets for different situations is a must!
Element sets work the best for MHW weapons with fast attacks like Dual Blade since the bonus percentage damage builds up faster. That doesn’t mean slower weapons like Great Sword won’t get any benefit since they’re given bigger bonus percentage damages, though.
With that cleared up, let’s decide which is the best Element that you should take to your MHW hunts. As mentioned above, considering how situational Element builds are, we’ll judge it according to how many monsters are weak against specific Element:
The best Element for base MHW:
- Thunder: 9 monsters.
- Water: 9 monsters.
- Dragon: 9 monsters.
- Fire: 8 monsters.
- Ice: 7 monsters.
Iceborne expansion:
- Ice: 10 monsters.
- Fire: 8 monsters.
- Thunder: 6 monsters.
- Water: 6 monsters.
- Dragon: 5 monsters.
Do note that both MHW lists use only 3-star Element weaknesses and don’t count monsters’ phase weaknesses. For example, Jyuratodus and Barroth have different Elemental weaknesses when their bodies are muddy. Or Kulve Taroth’s gold-plating is weak against Thunder while its body is susceptible to Ice attacks.
When using Dragon Element against Elder Dragons, you might want to look for weapons with high Elderseal stats in MHW. Elderseal can suppress the four main Elder Dragons’ aura, such as Kirin’s lightning shield, Kushala’s wind shield, Teostra’s fire aura, and Vaal Hazak’s miasma aura.
The Best Status Effect for MHW Weapons
Now, let us take a look at Status Effect weapons. Like Element, there are 5 different Statuses in MHW: KO/Stun, Paralysis, Poison, Sleep, and Blast. As mentioned above, Status will only proc/trigger after a certain amount of damage threshold using said weapon or items has been reached. The weaker a monster against a Status, the faster it will proc. However, once a Status has proc’d, the monster will build up a resistance, and you might have to deal twice or thrice the Status damage.
In terms of damage, Blast is the best one since every time it procs, it will make a small explosion that deals flat raw damage. Poison‘s tick damage isn’t too shabby either, especially if the monster is really weak against it.
Meanwhile, Paralysis and Stun are the two best Statuses for cooperative play since they will immobilize the monster. Hammer, Hunting Horn, Sticky Ammo, and Impact Charge Blade all have innate Stun damages when aimed at a monster’s head. On the other hand, Sleep is more reliable in solo play on account of the fact that a monster will take twice the damage from a wake-up attack.
In online play, though, there’s a huge chance that other Hunters won’t notice that the quest target is starting to sleep! Just use the other Status or Element weapons for MHW multiplayer hunts.
Unlike Blast and Poison, Paralysis, Stun, and Sleep usually have much higher proc thresholds. That means you’ll often only proc those 3 Statutes three or four times maximum in a hunt.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is available on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
